Chalkbeat

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pushes education agenda with ‘urgency’ during first year in office

2024-05-14T11:00:00+00:00

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On a recent Tuesday morning, Mayor Brandon Johnson visited classrooms at Kelvyn Park High School in Hermosa to present certificates of recognition to teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week.

Flanked by an alderman and the chief of finance for the teachers union, Johnson posed for photos and created a scene rare to find before last year: The mayor standing side-by-side with teachers, some wearing bright red Chicago Teachers Union shirts.

The scene was an indicator of the pivotal role education has played in Johnson’s agenda in office.

When Johnson, a former middle school teacher and Chicago Teachers Union organizer, was elected last year, it was no surprise education would be a central priority.

The union catapulted Johnson into office, and his win was the result of a decade of CTU organizing against how previous mayors approached public education. Instead of a system in which schools compete for students and parents choose the best option no matter how far they may have to travel, Johnson promised to focus on bolstering neighborhood schools, many which have seen declining enrollment and fewer resources.

As Johnson hits the one-year mark in office, his appointed school board has overseen a change in the district’s funding formula and directed district leaders to come up with a new five-year strategic plan, to be voted on this summer, that would rethink the city’s school choice system, which includes charter, selective enrollment, and magnet schools that require applications for admission.

“We have to fund our schools based upon the need,” Johnson said in a February 2023 video interview with Block Club Chicago. “Every single school should have a social worker, counselor and nurse as the bare minimum.”

But Johnson faces a big challenge in carrying out his education agenda: Chicago Public Schools is facing a projected $391 million budget deficit next fiscal year and has provided little detail on how it will close the gap. Federal COVID money is running out and he must bargain a new contract with the teachers union.

Johnson’s agenda also called for free public transit for students, housing for the district’s 20,000 homeless students, and creating up to 200 more Sustainable Community Schools – a partnership with the CTU that provides wraparound services at needy schools. None of these promises have seen any progress.

Still, education may be the one area where Johnson has made progress during his first year in office, said Dick Simpson, professor emeritus of politics at University of Illinois at Chicago and a former alderman.

“In comparison to, say, his other problems — solving crime, for instance — he is much further along on the school agenda,” Simpson said.

The speed with which Johnson can deliver on his education promises is important because he will soon lose exclusive control over the Chicago Board of Education, as the school board begins to transition to a partially elected body this November.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Johnson said his focus on education “has more to do with the urgency that families are calling for.”

“We’re talking about decades upon decades of school closures, the defunding of our schools, the attack on veteran educators, particularly Black educators,” Johnson said. “So our urgency is really centered around the needs of our young people and the needs that our families have.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson visits the classroom of English teacher Noe Castro at Kelvyn Park High School with Principal Keith Adams and Ald. Felix Cardona Jr. (31st) in Hermosa on May 7, 2024.

Bolstering neighborhood schools, but not without backlash

Johnson’s plans to bolster neighborhood schools kicked into gear last December.

Just before winter break, the board of education passed a resolution aimed at boosting neighborhood schools and rethinking Chicago’s school choice system, which encourages kids to enroll in public schools outside their attendance zones. Half of all elementary students go to schools that are not their zoned neighborhood schools and more than 70% of high schoolers do.

Johnson has described the choice system as a “Hunger Games scenario” that forces schools to compete for students and resources and results in less investment in neighborhood schools. The resolution said the choice system “reinforces, rather than disrupts, cycles of inequity” and must be replaced with “anti-racist processes and initiatives that eliminate all forms of racial oppression.”

Though many selective enrollment and magnet schools were created under court-ordered desegregation, many still lack the diversity of the city and are largely segregated by race and class. A couple dozen are integrated, but serve more white and Asian American students than the rest of the school district.

The board’s resolution did not change any current policies or suggest the closure of any schools. Board members emphasized that public feedback would drive any changes, such as to admissions policies. Board members have, however, said they plan to scrutinize charter schools more.

The resolution was praised by advocates who have long pushed for more investment in neighborhood schools and the Chicago Teachers Union.

Johnson “ran on equity,” said Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. “He said that our school district had to be more equitable, and the resolution that came from the Board of Education is speaking to the inequity and their efforts to ameliorate inequity that are often disproportionately experienced by neighborhood schools.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson meets students as he tours Kelvyn Park High School in Hermosa on May 7, 2024.

But the resolution also sparked backlash from families whose children attend schools of choice, including those already frustrated that CPS was not providing bus service to general education students, largely those attending selective and magnet schools.

Those concerns pushed state lawmakers to file a bill that is up for a final vote this week, which would prevent the district from changing admissions policies for selective enrollment schools – something the current board signaled it may do. The bill would also prevent CPS from cutting funding for selective enrollment schools or closing any school until 2027, when the school board will be fully elected. The bill is supported by powerful state lawmakers and Gov. J. B. Pritzker.

Johnson said the bill would prevent the board from taking actions to help create “real equity” and would prevent the district from balancing its budget. He began rattling off the relatively small percentages of Black students at some of the city’s most sought after selective enrollment high schools and noted how those figures were higher about two decades ago.

“What I’m troubled by is that you have a school district that is hypersegregated and that stratification has continued to grow because you haven’t had leadership like mine directing the school board and the Chicago Public Schools to commit to real equity,” Johnson said. “So is Springfield intervening to protect segregation?”

Simpson noted that Johnson has “a more strained” relationship with the legislature and Pritzker, meaning he doesn’t have a lot of clout to fight for what he wants.

Mayor Brandon Johnson pats the head of kindergartner Triston during a back-to-school event at Jackie Robinson Elementary School in Bronzeville on Aug. 21, 2023.

CPS changes funding formula

In March, CPS announced it would change how it distributes money to schools, delivering on another major promise Johnson made on the campaign trail to end student-based budgeting, which provides schools a set dollar amount for every child enrolled.

The new funding formula will now give every school a base level of staff and discretionary money based on need, which principals can use flexibly. This “needs-based” formula is meant to break a cycle in which underenrolled schools in underinvested neighborhoods lose money because they’re losing students.

That change, too, has drawn a fresh batch of concerns.

Parent leaders at selective enrollment and magnet schools said their budgets provide for fewer staffers next year under the new formula. Some Local School Councils are voting against their budgets for next year.

CPS officials have said that overall funding to schools remains the same as last year but individual schools could see changes. The district is looking for cuts at the central office to address the $391 million deficit, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has said. CPS has not yet released school budgets for next year to the public.

The union also raised concerns about the formula, saying it lacks guaranteed positions, such as teacher assistants, and said some neighborhood schools have also seen cuts. Davis Gates blamed Martinez – not the mayor – for those flaws, because she said he is not explaining the changes well to the public or lobbying the state legislature hard enough for more money to prevent staffing cuts to some schools.

Mayor Brandon Johnson hugs art teacher Meredith Kachel at Kelvyn Park High School as he surprised her for Teacher Appreciation Week. Johnson visited the school with Principal Keith Adams and Ald. Felix Cardona Jr. (31st) in Hermosa on May 7, 2024.

Sylvia Barragan, a spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools, said “multiple staff members” have visited Springfield throughout the session to advocate for more funding, and Martinez has pushed for more funding “for well over two years in Springfield, at our Board of Education meetings and beyond.”

CPS officials have said that no type of school is being disproportionately impacted. But Martinez has acknowledged that they are working to fix concerns at individual schools.

Mayor inconsistent on police out of schools

Some education-focused organizations have criticized the mayor’s administration for pushing big changes through or flip-flopping on commitments without properly engaging the public.

Hal Woods, director of policy and advocacy for Kids First Chicago, shared some examples. For one, the board publicly posted its resolution stating its intent to rethink school choice two days before the board voted, leaving little time for the public to digest it, Woods said. The district is currently holding hearings to collect feedback for the next strategic plan.

Parents and schools have also demanded more information about why the district is changing its funding formula, Woods said. He added that the former formula wasn’t working for many schools, but the district hasn’t shared enough about the new formula or its impact on schools.

Woods also said the mayor could be more clear with communities on his position to remove police from schools. Johnson supported getting rid of campus police on the campaign trail but later said local schools should have the power to choose whether to have school resource officers. Then in February, the mayor backed the school board when it voted to unilaterally remove officers from all campuses by next school year.

School police officers in the hallways of Lane Tech High School in Chicago.

“There’s plenty of data that shows how police in schools impact youth mental health, right, and the disproportionate impact on Black students and Latino students, but … they’re kind of making a decision based on their values without kind of educating the public on why they’re making that decision,” Woods said.

Johnson said “he will talk to anyone” and rejected the idea that his administration isn’t transparent enough. He pointed to the handful of board of education meetings that have been held at high schools in the evening instead of downtown during the day. He believes some of that criticism comes from people who “have had unfettered access” to previous mayors, and there are “people who now have access who were shut out before.”

“I’ve said all along,” Johnson said, “there’s plenty of room at the table for everyone.”

Fulfilling other promises before school board shifts

There are several promises Johnson hasn’t made progress on, including expanding Sustainable Community Schools, a CPS partnership with the teachers union that pairs needy schools with community organizations that provide wraparound services to families. Each program costs about $500,000.

While Johnson has shifted focus toward neighborhood schools, his administration is struggling to support the 8,900 migrant students and families who have arrived in Chicago from the southern border since at least August 2022.

As a candidate, Johnson promised to invest more money in bilingual education. Between August 2022 and last August – five months after he was elected – the number of bilingual-certified educators grew by 90, according to CPS. Between last August and the end of April, that figure grew by another 106 teachers.

CPS and the city also opened a welcome center to help migrant students enroll in school and access other resources. CPS said it helps direct families to schools with the proper resources when they are struggling with enrollment.

Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks at a press conference at Roberto Clemente Community Academy before the opening of a pilot CPS welcome center for newly arriving families on July 17, 2023.

Still, the union, lawmakers, and families have reported that many schools are struggling to meet the needs of migrant children, most of whom are learning English as a new language and are homeless. Those challenges include lacking enough staff to help children with specialized English instructions.

Johnson again blamed state lawmakers for their efforts to protect selective enrollment schools, saying it would “prevent us from having the type of budget, autonomy, and flexibility to invest in those schools” that lack resources to help English learners.

Johnson also hasn’t gained ground on providing the district’s 20,000 homeless students with housing — a bold promise tied to a signature campaign promise to pass the Bring Chicago Home referendum. That ballot measure, which would have used a tax on property sales over $1 million to help fund housing for homeless families, failed in March.

Ultimately, Johnson’s education legacy and the fate of his preferred policies will depend on what the future elected school board does, Simpson said.

“I do think the new school board, as it begins to take shape, will revisit these issues and either move forward with the general direction of Johnson and the current school board, or will roll them back to an extent,” he said.

It could also depend on the ongoing financial challenges for Chicago Public Schools. Asked how he will achieve his goals in the absence of more money from Springfield, Johnson said he’s exploring other “measures and steps that we can take as a city.” When pressed for details, Johnson’s office declined to elaborate.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

What does it take to be a school board member? New Chicago leadership program offers a guide.

2024-05-03T15:21:29+00:00

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In a classroom normally filled with teenagers, 16 adults sat at desks arranged in a U-shape on a recent Saturday afternoon at Roosevelt High School on Chicago’s North Side.

Behind the group, there was a small table with a box of red, green, and yellow wristbands. Green meant you were fine with hugs; yellow OK’ed high fives and fist bumps; and red meant “no touching, send vibes!” according to a sign taped to the table. Next to the wristbands were a stack of packets that said “Effective School Boards Framework.”

At the front of the class, a projected slide said in big letters, “Student outcomes don’t change until adult behaviors change.”

It was time for lessons on how to be on a school board.

AJ Crabill, an author presenting to the group that day, asked the class: Who is at the top of the organizational chart of a school system?

It’s not the school board, he said.

The superintendent, someone wondered.

“It is 1,000% not the superintendent,” Crabill said.

The mayor?

“It’s definitely not the mayor.”

Students?

That would be “beautiful,” Crabill said, but that’s not how it works typically.

The correct answer: The community.

Crabill, director of governance for the Council of the Great City Schools, was explaining to the class of education advocates, parent leaders, and prospective school board members that any school system exists to serve the public — but sometimes policymakers forget that.

“The moment you realize the community is at the top of the org chart, and then you realize, ‘That seems completely incongruent with my lived experience,’” Crabill said, drawing some laughs.

AJ Crabill, Director of Governance for the Council of Great City Schools, speaks to the inaugural class of Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) Chicago fellows during School Board School held at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago, Illinois on April 19, 2024.

The students are the inaugural class of a new, eight-month fellowship launched by National Louis University to prepare people for Chicago’s first elected school board, said Bridget Lee, the fellowship’s executive director. The fellowship is funded by Crown Family Philanthropies, The Joyce Foundation, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, and Vivo Foundation (Crown, Joyce, and Vivo also support Chalkbeat. Learn more about our funding here.)

Known as the Academy for Local Leadership, or ALL Chicago, the fellowship is happening at a critical time. Chicago voters will begin electing people to the city’s school board this November, and candidates are building campaigns. But Lee said the program is for advocates as well as potential candidates.

Fellows had to apply to join the program, which began in March and will last through November and are hosted across the city, said Lee, who added that they are still figuring out the timing for the second cohort of fellows. Fellows are given a $400 stipend to help cover transportation costs — an amount Lee hopes will increase in the future, she said.

Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) Chicago fellow Mary Nikoo takes notes during a session held at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago, Illinois on April 19, 2024.

Over about two sessions a month, the group will learn the basics of Chicago’s school system, the district’s finances, and how to make an “action plan” for creating change in school communities.

Towards the end of the program, fellows will flesh out their actual action plan and present their vision for change during their graduation ceremony. By then, some of the fellows who are running for school board may have won their elections.

The first group of fellows includes a handful of people running for office and many with close ties to the district. It includes Sendhil Revuluri, a former board member; Danielle Wallace, a school board candidate running in District 6 on the South Side; and Mykela Collins, a mother with two children in Chicago Public Schools who serves on a Local School Council.

Wallace, a former teacher and nonprofit leader in Englewood, was on the fence about running for school board until she started the fellowship.

“One of the most valuable things for me is becoming really clear on what my thoughts and values and positions are on different topics,” Wallace said. “That just gives me a lot of confidence on making the right decisions from that seat.”

Fellows Jesus Ayala Jr. and Carlos Rivas have also filed campaign finance paperwork to run for school board seats in District 7 on the South West side and District 3 on the North West side, respectively.

Collins said she applied for the fellowship because she wanted to know how to be a better advocate.

“I wanted to know who is important for me to go to, the type of questions I can ask and needed to ask and how I can go about getting those answers,” Collins said.

Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) Chicago fellows Mykela Collins, right, and Christina Jensen, left, laugh during a session held at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago, Illinois on April 19, 2024.

Lee’s idea for the fellowship formed three years ago, when Illinois lawmakers first passed a law creating the elected school board. As a former teacher and CPS employee who worked in the central office, Lee wondered how the public would learn about the complicated new governance system. Lee then visited a program in Cincinnati called School Board School, which educates school board candidates and advocates, and decided to bring the model to Chicago, she said.

Lee said “plenty” of organizations help political candidates navigate politics. ALL Chicago focuses instead on learning about the school system and how to work with people who may not agree with you — just like a school board.

For example, this first batch of fellows sees eye-to-eye on about 80% of things: They care about children, and they want all students to succeed regardless of their backgrounds, Lee said. She wants the fellowship to be the place where people can have “productive civil discourse” about the 20% of things they don’t agree on.

“I think that fellows are sort of learning from each other, like how their own stories and their own experiences have shaped their viewpoint and how the system should run and are learning how to talk about that in a way that moves things forward,” Lee said.

Since the program began in March, the group has already heard from some experienced policymakers, including former Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, Lee said. They’ve also started to create their plans for how they want to impact the school system.

On the Saturday afternoon when Crabill was there, however, the fellows went back to the basics.

He asked the group to ponder some big questions, such as, “Why do school systems exist?” Answers varied. One person said the goal was to prepare children for the workforce. Another said school systems also help students socialize.

Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) Chicago fellow Cory Cain asks a question to speaker AJ Crabill, Director of Governance for the Council of Great City Schools, during a session held at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago, Illinois on April 19, 2024.

After learning that the community is at the top of the organizational chart, Crabill, who wrote the book, “Great On Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Become Effective,” emphasized another basic fact of being an elected official: Your job is never over.

“You gonna be sittin’ up in the grocery store trying to find a non-squishy avocado, and somebody gonna come up to you and complain about, how come their kid didn’t get a part in the play?” Crabill said, igniting laughter across the room.

But, seriously, he said: “This becomes your life. People will roll up on you at any moment when you have put yourself in the position to be their representative — and I think it’s perfectly appropriate for them to do so.”

The fellows’ knowledge of Chicago Public Schools varied. One person talked about the district’s school bus crisis. At one point, one fellow informed another that Chicago Public Schools had scrapped its old school rating policy last year. The second fellow replied, “Thank God.”

Materials used by Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) Chicago fellows are seen on the desks during a session held at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago, Illinois on April 19, 2024.

Other times, fellows had some universal experiences with CPS. For instance, during a discussion about public feedback, the class started talking — and commiserating — all at once about the process of signing up for public comment during monthly Chicago Board of Education meetings.

“You gotta sign up two days in advance and it finishes in two minutes,” one fellow said.

“Yes!” another replied.

School board members should never only consider public feedback during a meeting, Crabill said, given that most people in the community won’t be represented there.

Crabill also covered the murky line of when board members should step in to solve a problem or delegate to someone else.

He asked the group to imagine a class of 26 students where six of the children have higher needs and get more attention from the teacher. Now imagine that a father of one of the other 20 children calls a school board member he knows, asking for more attention for his child. The board member then calls the teacher to fix the problem. What is the teacher going to do?

One fellow’s answer stood out: “Spend more time with that one kid,” she said.

That’s probably what would play out – but Crabill warned the group to never let that happen. School board members should be pointing the parent to the proper channels for expressing their concern instead of giving them inequitable access to power and frustrating their employees in the process.

Fellows in the inaugural class of Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) Chicago listen to speaker AJ Crabill, Director of Governance for the Council of Great City Schools, during a session held at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago, Illinois on April 19, 2024.

“We’ve created a hostile work environment for our staff that pressures them to no longer do what in their judgment is the best interest of children but instead do what is in the best interest of the power that be that showed up,” Crabill said.

This lesson was enlightening for Collins, the mother and LSC member.

“Learning that the roles and the responsibilities and accountability of the board is so much different from what I ever thought,” Collins said. “I thought that the board is supposed to do everything…anything goes wrong in the school, it’s the board’s issue, but learning that’s not how it is and they delegate different folks throughout the district to make those changes.”

During the session, fellows had a meta moment. They realized that so much of what they’re learning about the school system isn’t common knowledge to the general public. Was there a way that the system or a future board could spread what they’re learning?

Crabill challenged them.

“This is a new scenario for Chicago,” Crabill said, “so write a new script.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board candidates gather virtually for first debate

2024-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

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Thirteen people running in Chicago’s first school board elections participated in a virtual debate late Sunday night and answered questions about equity, community voice, and bus transportation for students.

The Zoom session — organized by the group CPS Parents for Buses — marked the first time candidates fielded questions as a group in a public forum for the city’s historic upcoming school board elections.

Chicago voters will elect 10 school board members for the first time this November to govern Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s fourth largest school district, alongside 11 members appointed by the mayor. In 2026, all 21 members will be elected, ending 30 years of mayoral control.

Chicago has been divided into 10 districts for the 2024 election (You can find what district you live in here.) In order to get on the ballot, candidates have until June 24 to collect 1,000 signatures from voters in their districts.

While the ballot is not yet set, those who attended the forum Sunday night were:

Jennifer Custer and Michelle Pierre, who are both running in District 1 covering the city’s northwest side out to O’Hare.
Kate Doyle, Daniel Steven Kleinman, and Maggie Cullerton Hooper, all running in District 2, which covers the far north lakefront, including Rogers Park, Edgewater, and Lincoln Square.
Jason Dones, who is running in District 3, which spans across Humboldt Park, Irving Park, and Belmont Cragin.
Kimberly Brown and Thomas Day, both running in District 4, which covers Lakeview and Lincoln Park, as well as Angel Alvarez, who said he is considering a run in District 4.
Jesus Ayala Jr., running in District 7 which stretches from the University of Illinois Chicago campus to Gage Park.
Lanetta Thomas, who is running in District 9 to represent the far south side from Englewood to Beverly.
Adam Parrott-Sheffer and Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who are both running in District 10 to represent the south lakefront to the Indiana border.

The group that organized the candidate forum has been advocating since the start of the school year around restoring busing for roughly 5,500 general education students who lost transportation service at the start of this school year. Most of those students travel to magnet and selective enrollment schools.

CPS stopped busing general education students as it worked to ensure students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Programs require transportation were getting it and that their ride times were not longer than an hour.

All 13 candidates answered yes when asked if CPS should be responsible for busing general education students to magnet and selective enrollment schools.

Most of the questions candidates fielded went beyond bus transportation and covered the topics of equity, transparency, budgeting, and parent voice. Unlike many political debates, candidates often agreed with each other’s answers and ideas and traded compliments.

J.B. Mantz, with CPS Parents for Buses, said the group invited the current seven appointed school board members and the board’s chief of staff, but did not hear back.

Five possible Chicago school board candidates did not attend, but filed paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections to raise campaign cash to run for Chicago school board. They include: Ebony DeBerry, District 2; Carlos Rivas, District 3; Andy Davis, District 4; Danielle Wallace, District 6; and Katie Marciniak, District 7.

Another candidate from District 7 — Yesenia López — did not attend the virtual forum and has not filed campaign finance paperwork, but got an endorsement from U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia earlier this year.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers propose extending Chicago’s moratorium on school closures to 2027

2024-04-17T16:22:44+00:00

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Illinois lawmakers want to extend a moratorium on school closures in Chicago and prevent changes at selective enrollment and magnet schools until 2027, when a fully elected school board is sworn in.

The proposal moving through the legislature first emerged in response to a resolution passed by the Chicago school board in December to develop a new strategic plan that would move away from school choice and invest more in neighborhood schools. That sparked concerns Chicago Public Schools could close or change admissions at dozens of sought-after selective and magnet schools, though board members continue to reiterate they do not intend to close those schools.

The initial bill sought to prevent the district from closing or changing admissions policies at any selective or magnet schools. Now, lawmakers are now also proposing to extend an existing moratorium on any school closures to Feb. 1, 2027. Currently, state law prevents Chicago from closing schools until January 15, 2025, when a partially elected school board is set to be sworn in.

State Rep. Margaret Croke, a Democrat serving neighborhoods on the city’s northern lakefront and sponsor of the bill, said in a committee hearing Tuesday the legislation is meant to delay any big changes until an elected school board is in place.

“These huge decisions, I believe, should be made by an elected school board because we, as a general assembly, voted for an elected school board,” Croke said.

However, Croke said district officials approached her about not extending the moratorium.

“They do have concerns about what their budget is going to look like and whether or not they’re going to start having conversations about some of the schools that they need to have consolidated,” Croke said.

CPS last closed schools in 2018, when it consolidated four high schools in Englewood and built a new state-of-the-art neighborhood high school. Prior to that, the district closed 50 schools all at once in 2013, sparking months of protests and propelled political organizing within the Chicago Teachers Union that eventually helped elect current Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The school district has lost roughly 80,000 students in the past decade, and many schools once again struggle with low enrollment. For example, one high school on the West Side has just 33 students enrolled. Still, enrollment stabilized this school year and is climbing as new immigrant students enroll.

During a committee hearing Tuesday, State Rep. Marcus Evans Jr., who represents neighborhoods on Chicago’s south side, said the district does need to provide more support to neighborhood schools to make them more attractive to families.

“Parents are crying because they can’t get their kid into a selective enrollment school,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of schools where people don’t want to send their kids. That means we got to fix those schools. The focus has to be on neighborhood schools.”

Evans added that CPS has “serious issues” with race and class that need to be addressed, noting that he hears from well-resourced Black and white constituents who won’t send their children to neighborhood public high schools in his ward.

Many of Chicago’s most sought-after selective schools are more diverse than the rest of the school district, but also are disproportionately less low-income and more white and Asian American than the rest of CPS.

“I think the new leadership – under the mayor, the new board – they want to do something different and I think it’s making people uncomfortable,” Evans said.

Chicago Board of Education President Jianan Shi said there is no plan or intent to close or change selective schools, but rather an attempt to fix inequities across the district.

“I am committed to working with everyone here on whether it’s budget, whether it’s selective enrollment and all the ways we can strengthen our school types,” Shi said.

Selective enrollment and magnet schools used to admit students based on race when Chicago was under a federal desegregation consent decree. That changed after a 2006 Supreme Court ruling curtailed the use of race as a factor in high school admissions. Now students are admitted based on the socioeconomic status of their home neighborhood.

Shi noted that since then, some of the district’s top high schools, such as Walter Payton, have become less Black and Latino and less low-income.

“Our Latine student population in CPS is 47%. That is no nowhere close to where our selective enrollments are and it’s even worse for our low-income students,” Shi said.

In 2022, there were discussions about changing selective enrollment admissions, but those mostly did not materialize. CPS did shorten the length of the High School Admissions Test from more than three hours to one hour and now tests all eighth graders during the school day in order to make it accessible to all students.

Croke did adjust some language in the bill since she introduced it, including that selective schools can’t see their budgets “disproportionately” decreased compared to other schools.

CPS schools got their preliminary budgets last week. District officials said the total amount of funding dedicated to all schools won’t be cut, but individual campuses could see fluctuations up or down.

Next school year, the district is doing away with student-based budgeting and switching to a formula that allocates set staffing levels and provides additional money based on need.

CPS has not publicly shared all schools’ preliminary budgets and a spokesperson did not provide information about how many selective schools are seeing changes to their budgets next year.

Shi said during a committee hearing in Springfield that 22 of 36 selective schools will maintain funding or see an increase next school year.

Stephen Mitchell, the Local School Council chair at Bronzeville Classical Elementary School, said their budget appears to be reduced, even though it’s difficult to compare year to year numbers.

“You hear CPS say‚ ’Oh, nothing’s gonna change,”' Mitchell said. “But then when we look, we see something different. So it’s definitely making us you know, raise an eyebrow and say, hey, you know what’s going on here? You’re telling us one thing, but it looks like you’re doing something else.”

Chicago school board vice president Elizabeth Todd-Breland said Wednesday morning that the bill looks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

“The small number of selective enrollment schools in the district are well enrolled. They are well resourced and Chicago Public Schools and this board of education will continue to support these schools,” she said.

Todd-Breland said the district is facing a “serious structural deficit” and the board is required to pass a balanced budget annually.

“We are worried about the very real possibility that as an unintended consequence of this bill, we in the out years will be forced to balance our budget on the backs of neighborhood schools that disproportionately serve students with disabilities, black students, Latinx students, students in temporary living situations, and low income students,” she said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers push back deadline for drawing Chicago’s elected school board maps

2023-05-26T20:50:13+00:00

Illinois lawmakers are giving themselves more time to divide Chicago into districts ahead of the city’s first school board elections.

Under a measure passed late Thursday night, the deadline for drawing the maps for the city’s school board moves to April 1, 2024 — seven months before the first elections are scheduled to be held. Chicago will move from a seven-member board appointed by the mayor to a 21-member board, with 10 members elected Nov. 5, 2024 and the rest elected in November 2026.

In a statement, Rep. Ann Willliams, who represents parts of Chicago’s north side and chairs the state House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group, said conversations have been “extremely productive.” But, “in order to create the strongest possible map and ensure all Chicagaons are able to elect the candidates that best represent their values, our work must continue.”

The delay comes after Chicagoans voiced concerns over whether voting districts would reflect CPS enrollment or the city’s overall population.

They also criticized legislators for rushing to create districts that will determine representation for the next several years before adjourning their spring session to meet a previous July 1 deadline.

Several advocates applauded the decision to delay.

“I’m very glad that the voice of reason prevailed and they did not just ram a flawed map down our throats,” said Valerie Leonard, the leader of the Illinois African Americans For Equitable Redistricting, which submitted a map based largely on existing City Council Ward boundaries.

Leonard urged lawmakers to use the time wisely. So did Miriam Bhimani, a Chicago Public Schools parent who is part of The FOIA Bakery, a group of parents and data advocates pushing for a transparent map-making process.

“The extra time means that we can engage honestly and transparently with communities across the city about what an elected school board should look like and what their responsibilities are,” Bhimani said.

In an effort to spur more public engagement and conversation, The FOIA Bakery published 2,000 computer-generated maps earlier this month they say comply with the Voting Rights Act, and maximize minority representation, as well as take into account where public school students live.

Drawing a representative map in a segregated city, school district

Lawmakers released two drafts in recent weeks. The most recent draft has seven Black majority districts, five majority Latino, two with a Latino plurality, five majority white, and one with a white plurality. The initial proposal had two districts with a white plurality and one with a Latino plurality. Currently, one of seven appointed school board members is white.

Typically, electoral districts are drawn – and redrawn – based on voting-age population or total population after every census. In Chicago, the population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the public school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American. The city is also one of the country’s most segregated, making that dissonance even more of a challenge to those trying to draw representative maps.

“It’s a segregated city, the North Side doesn’t know what’s going on in the South Side; a parent who doesn’t have a kid in CPS, they don’t know their needs,” said Vanessa Espinoza, a public school parent who’s part of Kids First Chicago, which submitted a map and testimony to state lawmakers. “Even if you have a good intention, you don’t have the knowledge and experience.”

Espinoza said lawmakers should try to draw a map that considers the public school student population.

Leonard, with African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said she also wants to see a responsive, representative school board with members who have “lived experience with our schools versus people in ivory towers who have never experienced poverty.”

But she said that giving neighborhoods where more Chicago Public School students live more weight could violate the constitution’s equal protection clause.

“It could fly in the face of the one man, one vote, equal protection under the law, even though it’s a noble idea.” Leonard said.

Jianan Shi, executive director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, a parent group that was part of a coalition of community groups that submitted maps in partnership with the Chicago Teachers Union, said he hopes the extended deadline will allow everyone to “get to the table” to find a compromise.

“There’s no perfect map,” Shi said. “How do we take in as much feedback as possible and keep making versions until we get closer?”

New deadline could shorten school board campaign season

The first-ever Chicago school board elections are scheduled to take place on Nov. 5, 2024. So when lawmakers approved the measure to give themselves a new April 1, 2024 deadline, Shi initially thought: “Shoot. I wish I was going to get out this information as soon as possible to our parents.”

“I want as much time as possible to educate people about the maps and where the boundaries are,” Shi said. Raise Your Hand is one of a few community groups that help train parents and community members to run for and serve on Local School Councils in Chicago. The councils are like mini-school boards serving individual campuses that make decisions over school improvement, principal selection, and parts of the budget.

Max Bever, a Chicago Board of Elections spokesman, said Friday the board had been planning to notify voters of their new school board districts through mailers around Labor Day this year, but will now face “a time crunch to get that all done.”

“Our team will be ready, but it’s more just having enough time for people to have awareness of: What’s your district? Who is running?” Bever said. “This also might be a very quick period for candidates.”

Bever said the timeline for candidates to collect the 250 signatures needed to get on the ballot will likely be during summer 2024. Because Chicago’s school board elections are nonpartisan, they will not be on the ballot in the March 2024 primary.

Rep. Ann Williams said the election is still on target for November 2024. The legislature will wrap up their spring session this week, but members are due back for a veto session in the fall when they could take action on a school board map. They could also wait until the next spring session begins in early 2024 to finalize how the city will be divided.

Lawmakers could also decide in the next session to clarify or tweak the law that created the 21-member elected school board for Chicago. There have been questions about whether board members should be compensated or if there should be campaign spending limits that are stricter than Illinois’ broader election limits. Neither exist in the law as it’s currently written.

“I think some of the campaign spending limits that people have talked about would be really helpful to ensure that the everyday Chicago mom and dad could run for the board without having to have either wealth or special interests backing them,” said Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago.

Another concern raised by Kids First Chicago and others is that noncitizens will not be allowed to vote or serve on Chicago’s school board. However, the existing law requires a noncitizen advisory committee be created. Leonard said she would like to see something similar for Black families. Her group is proposing the creation of an African American Affairs Committee.

“If, for some reason, we end up with representation that doesn’t necessarily reflect the school population, at least you’ll have those permanent committees in place to make sure the interests of minorities are represented,” she said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers to hold hearing on revised draft map for Chicago elected school board ahead of possible vote

2023-05-18T15:57:34+00:00

Illinois lawmakers released a new draft map for Chicago’s soon-to-be-elected school board at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday ahead of a hearing scheduled for this evening.

Their initial proposal for dividing Chicago into 20 districts for the city’s school board elections that begin in 2024 was met with criticism for underrepresenting Latino families, who make up 46.5% of Chicago Public Schools student population.

The new draft tinkers with three districts where no racial or ethnic group has a 50% majority, tilting two of those in favor of Latinos.

In the latest iteration, seven districts have a population that is 50% or more Black, five where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts have a Latino plurality, where roughly 40% of the population is Latino, and one has a white plurality. Previously, two districts had a white plurality and one had a Latino plurality.

Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

The Senate Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board will hold a virtual hearing regarding the updated map at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 18, where a vote could take place. The House will hold one on Friday, May 19.

Lawmakers face a July 1 deadline to pass a map for Chicago’s elected school board, but their spring session is currently scheduled to wrap up this weekend.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicagoans want elected school board to better represent Black and Latino students

2023-04-06T02:28:54+00:00

Chicagoans who spoke at a public hearing Wednesday evening want to see the soon-to-be elected school board better represent the mostly Black and Latino students attending the city’s public schools.

The hearing was the first of five held by the Illinois’ Senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, which is tasked with drawing the districts where school board members will be elected. The board has a July 1 deadline. The first Chicago school board elections will be held November 2024.

According to state law, school board districts must reflect the city’s population. In Chicago’s case, public schools serve predominantly Black and Latino students, while the city’s overall population is 33% white.

Kee Taylor, a band teacher at Michele Clark High School on the West Side, said they want the maps drawn in a way that gives a voice to Austin, North Lawndale, and Garfield Park residents, because schools in these neighborhoods don’t have the resources necessary to be academically successful.

“For me, it’s important that as we draw these boundaries that we are prioritizing and centering communities that we neglected,” Taylor said. For example, Taylor said Michele Clark does not have a race track, and students on the track team have to practice in the hallway.

Valerie Leonard, founder of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said that in addition to drawing representative maps, there needs to be a stronger relationship between local school councils and the board of education to amplify the needs of schools in different communities.

“We need you to strengthen the relationship between the local school councils and the Board of Education to further amplify the voices of schools in their communities,” said Leonard. “This can be achieved by seeking local school council representation, or by developing an advisory structure where local school councils can provide more robust feedback.”

Chicago’s mayor has appointed the members of the school board since 1995. That will come to an end under an elected school board bill that Gov. J.B. Prtizker signed in July 2021. The new school board will eventually have 21 elected members, creating one of the largest school boards in the nation.

Elected members will be phased in starting with the November 2024 election, when 10 members will be elected and 11, including the board’s president, will be appointed by the mayor. In November 2026, the 11 appointed seats will be up for election.

By January 2027, a fully elected board will be in place. The school board will then have staggered elections, with half the seats up for election every two years.

Chicago Public Schools is the fourth largest public school district in the nation, serving roughly 322,000 students. A majority of students are Black and Latino, and 72% come from low-income families.

As the district transitions to an elected school board, it could face a budget crisis. While Chicago’s operating budget is $9.5 billion, federal COVID-19 relief money will end by 2025.

The district may also pick up more costs after transitioning to an elected school board.

There will be four more public hearings this month, and Chicagoans can also submit feedback through an online portal.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers release third draft map for Chicago elected school board

2023-11-01T22:00:04+00:00

As trick-or-treating got underway Tuesday night, Illinois lawmakers released a new draft map for Chicago’s soon-to-be-elected Board of Education.

It’s their third attempt at drawing districts future school board members will represent.

The new map has seven majority Black districts, six where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts — one representing Rogers Park on the North Side and the other representing Portage Park and Old Irving Park on the North West side — are plurality white, with Latinos making up the second-largest population.

Chicago’s Board of Education holds significant power over public schools. School board members approve the district’s annual multi-billion dollar budget, determine how schools are measured and held accountable, authorize contracts with third parties to bus students to and from school, clean classrooms and hallways, and even operate entire schools under charter agreements.

The board has been appointed by the mayor since 1995, when the state legislature gave control of Chicago Public Schools to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. After former Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 public schools in 2013, community organizations and the Chicago Teachers Union began fighting for an elected school board.

Valerie Leonard, with the Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said under mayoral control, school board members were perceived to be not connected to the community.

“People felt — and I was one of them — like they were out of touch with what the community wanted, and they were only responsive to what the mayor wanted,” Leonard said. “It matters to have someone [on the school board] from your community who understands what people in your community are experiencing.”

After many years of advocacy and lobbying, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law in 2021 to create a 21-member elected school board with phased-in elections.

Under state law, Chicagoans will elect 10 school board members from 10 districts in November 2024. The mayor will appoint 10 members from those same districts, and will also appoint a school board president. A 21-member hybrid board will be sworn in January 2025.

Then in November 2026, the 10 appointed members and school board president will be up for election, while the 10 elected in 2024 will continue serving their four-year terms. Going forward, all members will serve four-year terms and elections will be staggered, with half of the seats up for election every two years.

However, the law does not spell out how the map will move from 10 to 20 districts. Lawmakers continue to draw a map with 20 districts and have not made clear how they plan to divide the city into 10 districts for the 2024 election.

Sen. Robert Martwick, a Democrat representing the North West side of Chicago and west suburbs, said that figuring out how to create 10 districts for the 2024 elections and 20 districts for the 2026 elections has been difficult for legislators.

“The original idea was that we would draw ten districts and then after the election we would split them into 20 districts,” Martwick said. “Another variation on that would be to draw 20 districts and combine them for the purposes of the first election. The idea there was that everyone in the city of Chicago would get to pass a vote on this new elected school board.”

State Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of the city’s North Side and chairs a special task force of House Democrats working on drawing school board districts, said the transition from 10 districts to 20 is “still under discussion,” but the goal is to vote on a map during next week’s veto session.

“At some point we have to get a map so that people can start looking at the districts and prepare to run for office,” Williams said.

“No map is ever going to be perfect. No map is ever going to make every single person happy,” she added. “But we really truly felt like this is the product that most incorporated the feedback that we got from the communities during all those hearings.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has been a longtime supporter of an elected school board. But when asked through a spokesperson Wednesday if he supported the latest draft or would weigh in on how school board districts are drawn, the spokesperson wrote back: No comment.

Lawmakers were supposed to draw a map of Chicago school board districts by July 1, 2023, but extended the deadline to April 1, 2024 after pushback from the public for not drawing districts that would be reflective of student enrollment.

That’s a difficult task in a city whose population does not mirror the public school enrollment. Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, 29% Black, and 7% Asian, but the school district’s student population is 47% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

School board seats are non-partisan so there will be no primary. According to the Chicago Board of Elections calendar, the first day candidates running for nonpartisan school board seats can circulate nominating petitions is March 26, 2024. They must collect 250 signatures from voters in their districts by June 24, 2024, in order to be on the ballot.

Last week, Martwick and state Rep. Kam Buckner, a Democrat, put forward a proposal that would also allow school board members to be compensated.

Mixed reactions to new draft map roll in

Legislators held two public hearings last month to gather additional feedback on their proposed school board districts. On Wednesday, several of the groups who have repeatedly testified and submitted public comment on previous maps reacted to the latest iteration.

Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit education advocacy organization that supports Black and Latino families and has an Elected School Board Task Force, called the latest proposal “more trick than treat.” The group took lawmakers to task for dropping a new draft map on Halloween when “most Chicago families were out celebrating with their children.”

Hal Woods, director of policy for Kids First Chicago, said the map continues to give white Chicagoans “substantial voting power” over a school district that serves just over 10% white students. He said parents see “more work that could be done.”

“Even with redlining, even with segregation, even with discriminatory housing policies that have forced many Chicago neighborhoods to be segregated … we have put forward prototypes that even with those historical inequities still adhere to all relevant election law,” Woods said.

A group of parents and data advocates called The FOIA Bakery released an analysis of the third draft map that looks at the proposed districts through the lens of the 2023 municipal election results. They say only seven districts in the new draft map would have elected a “minority-preferred candidate.”

But others say the new draft districts are much better than previous versions.

Jeff Fielder, executive director of the Chicago Republican Party, previously raised concerns about gerrymandering and argued for an independent commission to draw the maps. He said the third draft is better than the previous two because it has less gerrymandering.

“I’m sure there’s going to be lawsuits as it is but of their efforts, this is probably the best one,” Fielder said.

Cassie Creswell, executive director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, said she’s mostly concerned about not having a map solidified yet.

“The shorter the time between a final map and next year’s election, the worse it is for genuinely grassroots candidates who are trying to decide whether or not to run and then mustering the resources to do so,” Creswell said.

Political consultant Eli Brottman said the new map is “1,000 times better” and called six solid Latino districts a “huge win for our schools and our kids.” He said it took him multiple attempts to draw a map that would have six Latino majority districts.

Brottman said he suspects the lawmakers’ latest draft map has a “significant chance” of passing next week. Whenever that happens, he encourages people to get up to speed on what district they live in and who is running.

“Whoever we elect in these first couple rounds, helps to set a precedent for the future,” Brottman said.

Leonard, whose group Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting put out a 10-district map that tries to align school board districts with City Council wards, said lawmakers are getting closer with this latest iteration. But they need to figure out how their 20 districts become 10 for the 2024 elections, she said.

Corrina Demma, an organizer with Educators for Excellence Chicago that supports the map Leonard’s group proposed, raised concerns that lawmakers could propose residents in only 10 of the 20 districts would vote in 2024, meaning “only half of Chicago will have the privilege to vote … while the other half will lack a voice.”

“We need Illinois lawmakers to get the maps right, for the sake of the 323,000 students that are depending on it,” Demma said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers propose having half of Chicago voters select school board members in 2024

2023-11-03T23:45:00+00:00

Roughly half of Chicago voters would get to elect school board members in 2024 and the other half would vote in 2026, according to new language proposed by state lawmakers late Friday.

Earlier this week, legislators released a new draft map that divides the city into 20 districts. Each district has roughly 137,000 people in it. The new proposal assigns each district a number and says odd-numbered districts would vote in 2024. The state legislature could vote on the proposal during next week’s veto session.

In addition to outlining how Chicagoans would vote in the 2024 and 2026 election, the proposal includes ethics requirements for elected members and a conflict of interest provision that falls in line with state law.

The proposal also calls for the board of education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee to address the needs of Black students throughout the district and create a strategic plan to close the gap in academic achievement between Black students and their peers.

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, has pushed during public hearings for the Senate’s committee on the elected school board to create a Black Student Achievement Committee.

According to state law passed in 2021, 10 members of the school board are to be elected and 10 are to be appointed by the mayor in 2024. The mayor will also appoint a school board president. In 2026, the districts with appointed members will vote and the entire city will vote for a school board president.

People interested in running for Chicago’s Board of Education must collect 250 signatures from their districts and can begin circulating petitions on March 26, 2024. To get on the ballot, petitions must be filed by June 24, 2024.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s transition to elected school board up in the air as disagreements remain among state lawmakers

2023-11-10T01:30:46+00:00

How Chicago school board members will be elected one year from now is still in limbo after Illinois lawmakers couldn’t agree on the details of the transition this week.

But lawmakers in both chambers appeared to agree on the third draft of an electoral map dividing Chicago into 20 districts. That map has seven majority Black districts, six where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white.

However, they could not agree before adjourning their fall veto session on how elections would happen in 2024 and 2026 in order to transition to a fully-elected school board.

The state legislature is scheduled to meet again in mid-January.

According to a 2021 law — and its subsequent trailer bill — 10 school board members are to be elected on Nov. 5, 2024 from 10 geographic districts. The mayor would appoint a school board president and 10 members from those same districts. In November 2026, the appointed seats would be elected and a school board president would be chosen by all Chicago voters.

By January 2027, Chicago will have a 21-member fully-elected school board. The shift comes after three decades of mayoral control over Chicago Public Schools.

Lawmakers were supposed to divide the city into electoral districts by July 1, 2023, but gave themselves an extension in May to get the maps drawn by April 1, 2024. Many lawmakers and advocates hoped to define the map and how school board elections would roll out during this week’s veto session.

“By Senate standards, we are years ahead of schedule by being months ahead of schedule,” said Senate President Don Harmon, before the chamber voted 38-12 to approve a plan he put forward earlier this week to have all 20 districts vote right away, leaving only the board president up for mayoral appointment.

Under that plan, Mayor Brandon Johnson would lose the power to appoint 10 members and keep control via a hybrid Board of Education with 11 mayoral appointees.

“I am very hopeful that when all is said and done, this will be the law in Illinois, and we will have a fully elected school board after November of 2024,” Harmon said.

But lawmakers in the House passed a different proposal that would more closely aligns with the current law. It would pair up the 20 districts and result in 10 elected school board members and 10 appointed by the mayor from each pairing of districts. A school board president would be appointed by the mayor in 2024 and elected at-large in 2026.

“This has been a decade-long project, and is the product of years of advocacy and quite literally years of negotiation discussion with stakeholders, community members, leadership, elected officials, so it’s not surprising that it’s not an easy thing to implement,” said State Rep. Ann Williams, who chairs the House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group.

Williams said Harmon’s proposal to go to a fully-elected board and eliminate the hybrid period when the mayor would still maintain control by appointing 11 of 21 members was a surprise Wednesday.

“Opening up the bill again with only a day or so left in the veto session was a difficult prospect and created a lot of complications in the conversation,” Williams said. “I don’t think it’s something we could have done in just one day.”

Johnson said he was “very much committed” to the bill that passed in 2021 that would allow him to appoint half the school board in 2024. He also noted there are financial entanglements between the city and CPS that need to be “worked through.”

“This is going to be a tremendous adjustment for the people of Chicago and adjusting in a way that provides confidence in a new body of government is something that we have to take into real serious consideration,” Johnson said. “What we don’t want is to set individuals up with expectations that cannot be met.”

Harmon said Wednesday he would not call the House version for a vote in the Senate because it had “woefully inadequate ethical provisions” and “opens the door for corruption” by exempting future Chicago school board members from state law governing conflicts of interest for public officials, including school board members, throughout the rest of the state. The House, however, passed a bill Thursday afternoon agreeing to the Senate’s ethics provisions.

Senate Democrats initially proposed having voters in only 10 of 20 districts cast a ballot for a school board representative in 2024. That was met with criticism from advocates who said it would disenfranchise half of the city by making them wait until 2026 to have a say in who is elected to the school board.

In a statement Wednesday night, the Chicago Teachers Union said Harmon’s proposed changes could “delay and deny the democracy Chicago so desperately needs and deserves.” The union has been fighting for an elected school board in Chicago since 2013 and supports the House version.

Hal Woods, chief of policy for Kids First Chicago, said waiting until January or the April 1 deadline to finalize the details of school board elections will leave potential candidates less time to run and voters less time to decide on who to support.

Corrina Demma, an organizer for the nonprofit Educators for Excellence-Chicago, echoed those concerns.

“It gives us so little time to learn anything about these candidates, and get to know them,” Demma said.

“We’re on a budget cliff with the COVID funds running out,” she added. “There’s a lot of big decisions that are gonna have to be made that will affect all Chicago’s children and families. And who’s going to be making those decisions? How do we know if they’re gonna be qualified, if they have any lived experience, and can make choices that are best for the communities that they’re a part of?”

Demma said she wished lawmakers had also taken up the issue of compensating board members. State law currently prohibits school board members from being paid.

Lawmakers did also appear to agree on requiring the Chicago Board of Education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee that would focus on improving academic achievement for Black students.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Who will vote in Chicago’s first school board elections in 2024? Lawmakers are trying to decide.

2023-11-08T00:39:39+00:00

Illinois lawmakers are debating competing proposals that would allow all Chicago voters to cast a ballot in the city’s first school board elections in 2024.

A new proposal put forward by House Democrats pairs up the 20 districts the city is currently divided into under a third draft map released last week.

That plan, filed by Rep. Ann Williams, who chairs the House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group, would result in 10 elected school board members and 10 appointed by the mayor from each pairing of districts. A school board president would also be appointed by the mayor.

Meanwhile, following a Senate executive committee meeting, Senate President Don Harmon put forward a plan to have all 20 districts vote in 2024 and let the mayor appoint only the school board president. That came shortly after a senate committee passed an amendment that suggested only 10 of 20 districts vote in 2024.

Harmon said creating an elected school board for Chicago has been “a long journey.”

“Hopefully, we are in the closing chapter in Springfield,” he said.

According to state law passed in 2021, Chicago will move from having a seven-member school board appointed by the mayor to a 21-member elected school board by 2027.

But the transition from an appointed board to a hybrid one to one that’s fully-elected has puzzled lawmakers tasked with dividing the city into electoral districts.

According to the law — and its subsequent trailer bill passed in 2021 — 10 school board members are to be elected on Nov. 5, 2024 from 10 geographic districts. The mayor is to appoint 10 members from those same districts and a school board president at-large. In November 2026, the appointed members would then switch to being elected, including the school board president who would be elected at-large.

By January 2027, all 21 members will be elected. Going forward, elections will be staggered, with half the board up for election every two years.

The senate’s previous proposal to assign each district a number and only have people living in odd-numbered districts vote in 2024 was met with criticism by advocates who spoke during Tuesday’s committee meeting.

Kurt Hilgendorf, special assistant to Chicago Teachers Union’s president Stacy Davis-Gates, said that while the senate’s plan proposes a more representative map and addresses concerns around candidate eligibility and ethics, the union has decided not to take a position because of the proposal to only allow roughly half of the city to vote in 2024.

“That creates a disenfranchisement lawsuit risk and that we think that maximum participation should be done in the first election,” said Hilgendorf. “We think that all the voters in the city of Chicago should have the right to vote in that first year election.”

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, expressed the same concerns as Hilgendorf and suggested all 20 districts vote immediately.

“All districts should be up for election with half the terms being two-year terms and the other half being four years and that would create your stagger,” Leonard said.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Harmon said having only 10 districts vote was the “Achilles’ heel” of the proposal Senate Democrats put forward late last week.

Shortly after the meeting ended, Harmon filed the amendment that would have residents in all 20 districts vote. Members elected in odd-numbered districts would serve four-year terms and members elected in even-numbered districts would serve two-year terms. The mayor would only appoint the school board president and in 2026, that position would be elected at-large by all Chicago voters.

If the House passes its new proposal to pair districts, it would need Senate approval. Similarly, the Senate’s proposal to have all 20 districts vote in 2024 would need House approval. Lawmakers are scheduled to be in session until Thursday.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Seis cosas que hay que saber sobre las elecciones a la junta de educación de Chicago

2024-04-19T20:44:05+00:00

Read in English.

Algunas de las cuestiones sobre las que se preguntan los habitantes de Chicago en cuanto a las primeras elecciones de la junta escolar tienen que ver con el tema del dinero en las campañas, los distritos electorales, y la compensación de los miembros de la junta escolar.

A partir del 15 de enero de 2025, la Junta de Educación de Chicago cambiará de siete miembros nombrados por el alcalde a una junta de 21 miembros con 10 miembros elegidos por votación y 11 nombrados por el alcalde Brandon Johnson. La temporada de campaña está oficialmente en marcha y los candidatos están surgiendo.

El martes fue el primer día en que se pudieron recoger firmas para participar en las elecciones del 5 de noviembre. Hasta el miércoles, seis candidatos han presentado documentos de financiación de campaña ante la Junta Estatal de Elecciones de Illinois.

El mes pasado, Chalkbeat preguntó a sus lectores qué preguntas tenían sobre el cambio de Chicago a una junta escolar elegida por votación. Las contestaremos en los próximos meses, empezando con estas seis que se centran en el proceso electoral.

¿En el pasado, cómo se elegían los miembros de la Junta de Educación de Chicago?

La Junta escolar de Chicago está formada actualmente por siete miembros nombrados por el alcalde, que tiene poder para elegir a quien desee. En el pasado, estos nombramientos eran secretos hasta que el alcalde los anunciaba, a menudo en una rueda o comunicado de prensa. Tanto la ex alcaldesa Lori Lightfoot como el ex alcalde Rahm Emanuel reemplazaron a toda la junta escolar tras ser elegidos.

El estado otorgó al alcalde de Chicago el poder de nombrar a los miembros del consejo escolar en 1995, cuando el entonces alcalde Richard M. Daley estaba en el cargo. Antes de eso, el alcalde seleccionaba a los miembros del consejo escolar a través de un proceso de nominación comunitario.

En las elecciones de noviembre, ¿habrá elecciones en todos los distritos? ¿Por cuánto tiempo serán miembros de la junta?

Sí. Los legisladores de Illinois dividieron a Chicago en 10 distritos para las elecciones de 2024. El 5 de noviembre habitantes de cada distrito elegirán un miembro para representarlos por dos años. Antes del 16 de diciembre de 2024, el alcalde Brandon Johnson nombrará a 10 miembros - uno de cada distrito - y un presidente para servir en términos de dos años.

Así es como funcionará.

Cada distrito también se subdivide en dos regiones. Por ejemplo, el Distrito 1 se compone de dos partes: 1A y una 1B. Si el candidato ganador en el Distrito 1 vive en la zona 1A, el alcalde tiene que nombrar a alguien que viva en la 1B. Si el ganador en el Distrito 2 vive en 2B, el alcalde debe nombrar a alguien que viva en 2A, y así por el estilo.

En 2026, los habitantes de Chicago votarán por candidatos para un mandato de dos o cuatro años. El presidente de la junta escolar será elegido ese mismo año para un mandato de cuatro años, que comenzará el 15 de enero de 2027.

¿Qué cualificaciones se necesitan para ser miembro del consejo escolar de Chicago?

La ley estatal dice que para servir en la junta escolar de CPS, usted debe ser:

ciudadano estadounidense.
votante registrado.
tener al menos 18 años.
ser residente de la ciudad, distrito o subdistrito durante al menos un año inmediatamente antes de la elección o nombramiento.

Además, los miembros de la junta no deben ser delincuentes sexuales registrados ni contratistas o proveedores que trabajen con el distrito. Los candidatos también deben conseguir al menos 1,000 firmas en una petición electoral, entre otras normas.

¿Habrá algún tipo de supervisión con respecto a las finanzas de campaña de los miembros de la junta escolar? ¿Cómo se puede comprobar quién hace donaciones a las campañas?

La Junta de Educación de Chicago exige a sus miembros que presenten una declaración de intereses económicos y recomienda a los miembros de la junta que lleven una lista de los donantes de la campaña. Los interesados pueden comprobar quién financia la campaña de un candidato consultando el sitio web de la Junta Electoral del Estado de Illinois o la base de datos Reform for Illinois’ Sunshine.

¿Serán compensados los miembros de la junta escolar?

La respuesta corta es no. Los miembros de juntas escolares en Chicago y el resto de Illinois sólo pueden ser reembolsados por gastos relacionados con sus deberes.

Sin embargo, el otoño pasado, los legisladores estatales propusieron un proyecto de ley con el fin de eliminar la prohibición de compensar a los miembros de las juntas escolares. Este proyecto de ley no obligaría al distrito escolar a proporcionar un salario ni establecería unos mínimos sobre cuánto se pagaría a los miembros de la junta escolar. Simplemente permitiría a los consejos locales decidir. Este proyecto de ley está estancado en la comisión de Asignaciones del Senado desde octubre.

¿Recibirá la nueva junta escolar formación de la Asociación de Juntas Escolares de Illinois?

No necesariamente. Según el código escolar del estado y una norma de la Junta de Educación de Chicago, todos los miembros de la junta escolar, nombrados o elegidos, deben recibir entrenamiento. Sin embargo, los miembros de la junta escolar no tienen que ser entrenados por la Asociación de Juntas Escolares de Illinois.

El estado exige que los miembros de la junta reciban entrenamiento en leyes educativas, leyes laborales, supervisión financiera, y rendición de cuentas, responsabilidad financiera de los miembros de la junta escolar y entrenamientos sobre la importancia de los traumas en los estudiantes y el personal. La Junta de Educación de Chicago dice que los miembros deben ser entrenados en la Ley de Reuniones Abiertas, el Código de Ética, y la ley de Illinois Mandated Reporter, entre otros temas.

¿Aún tiene preguntas? Háganos saber en el siguiente formulario.

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Samantha Smylie es la reportera de educación estatal de Chalkbeat Chicago y cubre los distritos escolares de todo el estado, la legislación, la educación especial y la junta estatal de educación. Póngase en contacto con Samantha en ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea es la jefa de redacción de Chalkbeat Chicago. Póngase en contacto con Becky en bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por INN.

Six things to know about Chicago’s board of education election

2024-03-27T23:10:38+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

Leer en español.

Campaign money, voting districts, and school board member compensation are some of the issues Chicagoans have questions about as the city’s first school board elections loom.

Starting Jan. 15, 2025, Chicago’s Board of Education will go from seven members appointed by the mayor to a 21-member board with 10 elected members and 11 appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Campaign season is officially underway and candidates are surfacing.

Tuesday was the first day people could collect signatures to get on the ballot for the Nov. 5 election. As of Wednesday, six candidates have filed campaign finance paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Last month, Chalkbeat asked readers what questions they had about Chicago’s shift to an elected school board. We got dozens of responses. We’ll be answering them over the coming months, starting with these six focused on the electoral process.

How were Chicago Board of Education members chosen in the past?

Chicago’s school board is currently made up of seven members appointed by the mayor, who has unilateral power to pick anyone to serve. In the past, those appointments have been secret until the mayor announced them, often in a press conference or press release. Both former Mayor Lori Lightfoot and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel replaced the entire school board after being elected.

The state gave Chicago’s mayor the power to appoint school board members in 1995, when then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was in office. Prior to that, the mayor would select school board members through a community nominating process.

During November’s elections, will all districts be up for election? How long will board members serve?

Yes. Illinois lawmakers divided Chicago into 10 districts for the 2024 election. On Nov. 5, residents of each district will elect a school board member to represent them for two years. On or before Dec. 16, 2024, Mayor Brandon Johnson will appoint 10 school board members — one from each district — and a board president to serve two-year terms.

Here’s how it will work.

Each district is also subdivided into two regions. For example, District 1 is made up of two parts: 1A and a 1B. If the winning candidate in District 1 lives in 1A, the mayor has to appoint someone who lives in 1B. If the winner in District 2 lives in 2B, the mayor must appoint someone who lives in 2A, and so on.

In 2026, Chicagoans will vote for candidates in all 20 subdistricts to serve either a two-year or four-year term. The school board president will be elected that same year citywide to a four-year term, which will start on Jan. 15, 2027.

What qualifications does someone need to be a Chicago school board member?

State law says that to serve on the CPS school board, you must be:

a U.S. citizen.
a registered voter.
at least 18 years old.
a resident of the city, district, or subdistrict for at least one year immediately before election or appointment.

In addition, board members must not be registered sex offenders or contractors or vendors working with the district. Candidates must also get at least 1,000 signatures on an election petition, among other rules.

Will there be any oversight into school board members’ campaign finances? How can citizens check who is donating to campaigns?

The Chicago Board of Education requires its members to file a statement of economic interests and recommends that board members keep a list of campaign donors. Citizens can check who is financing a candidate’s campaign by searching the Illinois State Board of Elections website or Reform for Illinois’ Sunshine Database.

Will school board members be compensated?

The short answer is no. Currently, school board members in Chicago and the rest of Illinois can be reimbursed for expenses related to their duties.

However, last fall, state lawmakers proposed a bill to lift a ban on compensation for school board members from being compensated. This bill would not mandate the school district to provide a salary or set minimums for how much school board members would be paid. It would simply allow local boards to decide. This bill has been stuck in the Senate’s Assignments committee since October.

Will Chicago’s elected school board be trained by the Illinois Association of School Boards?

Not necessarily. According to the state’s school code and a Chicago Board of Education rule, all school board members, appointed or elected, must be trained. However, school board members do not have to be trained by the Illinois Association of School Boards.

The state requires board members to be trained in education law, labor law, financial oversight and accountability, financial responsibility of school board members, and trauma-informed practices for students and staff. Chicago’s Board of Education says that members must be trained in the Opening Meetings Act, the Code of Ethics, and the Illinois Mandated Reporter law, among other topics.

Still have questions? Let us know in the form below.

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Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Should Chicago school board members be paid? Some advocates hope state lawmakers say yes.

2024-04-01T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

Education advocates are renewing a push to change Illinois law to allow Chicago school board members to be paid — with the hope that would encourage teachers and parents from low-income households to represent Chicago Public Schools’ diverse student body.

State law currently does not allow school board members to be paid, though they can be reimbursed for expenses related to the job. But a bill filed in the state senate last fall would allow Chicago Board of Education members to be paid.

Chicago’s first school board elections take place this November, with a new half-elected, half-appointed 21-member board taking office January 2025. Candidates are already emerging now that they can collect signatures to get on the ballot.

Educators for Excellence, a nonprofit that advocates for teacher voice in policy and decision making, held an event earlier this month to rally support for paying Chicago school board members.

Corrina Demma, an organizer with Educators for Excellence, noted that because state law prohibits employees of Chicago Public Schools from sitting on the elected school board, teachers could run for a seat, but would have to quit their job in order to serve. Educators for Excellence has penned an open letter asking the Chicago Teachers Union to publicly support paying Chicago school board members.

The Chicago Teachers Union has yet to comment on whether it will support a measure for compensation.

Corinne Lydon, a middle school teacher in the city’s Austin neighborhood and a CPS parent who switched careers later in life, spoke at the Educators for Excellence event and said there’s no way she could have served on the school board when her children were younger and she worked in the restaurant and bar industry.

“As a low-income single mother who was struggling to make ends meet, I was always working three, four jobs,” Lydon said. “You desperately want to do something, but you can’t afford to represent your own child.”

Being a CPS board member requires between 25-30 hours of work per month, according to the board’s website, and involves attending public meetings, briefings with district officials, visiting schools, and reading hundreds of pages of documents every month.

“The elected school board role is not a small job,” Demma said. “You’re managing a $9.8 billion budget. That’s a huge amount of money.”

State Sen. Robert Martwick, who sponsored legislation creating an elected school board in Chicago, said negotiations are underway for compensating board members, but he’s not hopeful that legislation will be passed this year.

Chicago Public Schools is facing a $391 million deficit next school year as federal COVID recovery money runs out. Those who argue against paying Chicago’s 21 future school board members say it’s not the time to add additional costs.

In Colorado, which experienced a similar debate a few years ago over whether serving on a school board is a job or a civic duty, opponents argued the state’s underfunded schools should not be spending even small amounts on paying school board members. Ultimately, Colorado lawmakers voted to allow — but not require — school board members to be compensated and last year, Denver’s elected school board voted to pay newly-elected, incoming members up to $33,000 annually.

School boards under mayoral control in New York City and Philadelphia do not pay their members. In Los Angeles, elected school board members make up to $125,000.

In Indiana, school board members can receive a stipend of up to $2,000 per year, in addition to meeting stipends that max out at $112. In some states, such as Florida and Nevada, board members are paid a salary.

In 2021, when lawmakers first approved an elected school board for Chicago, Martwick pushed to allow school board members to be paid. But he said he ultimately took out the provision to get support for the legislation from some suburban and rural legislators.

Kara Kienzler, a spokesperson for the Illinois Association of Schools Boards — an organization that trains school board members across the state — said its members have not adopted a stance on compensation for board members.

There’s not much research on whether paying school board members impacts how schools operate. But a study out of Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill looked at whether state legislatures with higher salaries attracted more economically diverse representatives. The researchers found states with higher salaries actually had fewer working-class people serving.

Still, some research does show when politicians are paid more, they are more efficient and pay closer attention to the concerns of the people they represent. Research also shows that having diverse school boards does matter for how schools operate.

Lorena Lopez, a CPS parent, local school council member, and advocate with Kids First Chicago, said compensating board members could help ensure diversity on the CPS board, which would ultimately mean a “more equitable, innovative, and progressive school district.”

A recent Kids First Chicago poll found that more than 70% of Chicago voters believe elected school board members should receive a stipend or salary for serving on the board.

Illinois Families For Public Schools has expressed support for paying board members because it would give parents and community members a “meaningful, realistic ability to run and serve,” which was the intent of “a generation of community organizing” that made the looming school board elections a reality.

Samantha Smylie contributed.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago is getting an elected school board and candidates are starting to emerge

2024-03-26T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

Leer en español.

Today is the first day people can collect signatures to get on the ballot for Chicago’s first school board elections.

Chicago voters will head to the polls on Nov. 5 to choose 10 of 21 members to serve on the Board of Education beginning Jan. 15, 2025. After those elections, the mayor will also appoint 11 members.

The city is divided into 10 districts for these first elections and each will be represented by one elected member and one member appointed by the mayor. The mayor will also appoint a school board president.

Candidates must live in Chicago in the district they plan to run for at least one year. They must be a U.S. citizen, registered to vote, and cannot be a child sex offender. In order to get on the ballot, candidates have to collect at least 1,000 and no more than 3,000 valid signatures from voters in the district they’ll represent.

Signatures must be filed with the Chicago Board of Elections between June 17 and June 24.

In addition to signatures, candidates will be fundraising to support their campaigns. Once a candidate fundraises more than $5,000, state law requires them to file disclosure paperwork with the Illinois State Board of Elections. So far, four candidates have done that under committees that include their names, while other political action committees have been formed.

CPS parent and former CPS teacher and principal Adam Parrott-Sheffer filed campaign disclosure paperwork earlier this month and launched a website to announce he is running to represent District 10, which includes his Hyde Park neighborhood and stretches most of the city’s south lakefront from I-55 to the Indiana border.

Parrott-Sheffer told Chalkbeat he jumped in the race after not seeing others throw their hat in the ring. He said because school board members will not be compensated beyond expenses related to doing the job, parents and people not connected to special interests will have a harder time.

“I don’t think that the seats should be like they are in [Los Angeles]LA, where it’s a fight between business and charter and unions,” Parrott-Sheffer said. “I think that there’s a lot that all those perspectives can learn from each other, and are really valuable when we’re thinking about all of them together.”

Parrott-Sheffer, now an education consultant and adjunct professor, said being a principal gave him the skills to be a strong school board member who can balance the needs of parents, the district, organizers, teachers, community organizations, and businesses while keeping kids “front and center.”

“Politics is not my thing,” Parrott-Sheffer said. “I like schools, I like making schools better. I like making them work for kids. And so that kind of was the ultimate decision.”

CPS parent Kimberly Brown is planning to run in District 4, which encompasses the north lakefront neighborhoods of Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and Uptown. Brown is the chief marketing officer at a global manufacturing company and has two small children – one who attends a neighborhood school in Lakeview.

“The reality is the most change that affects you happens in your backyard with your local politics and most specifically your local school,” she told Chalkbeat. “And if you don’t have kids, local schools affect your public safety. They affect your public infrastructure. They affect the businesses and the economy that makes your streets wonderful. Local schools build local economies.”

If elected, Brown said she’s hoping to promote more transparency and communication from the district. That desire comes after spending the past eight months talking to CPS parents to understand what they want from the district, who don’t know “if the Board [of Education] is really trying or not,” Brown said.

Michelle Pierre also filed campaign disclosure paperwork Friday and plans to run in District 1, which covers neighborhoods, including Portage Park and Jefferson Park, on the northwest edge of Chicago near O’Hare airport. Pierre started her career as a teacher in New York, became a principal in D.C., and moved into district leadership roles in D.C. and Cleveland. She’s the former chief of schools for the LEARN Charter School Network in Chicago and now works for New Leaders, a national nonprofit focused on training principals and school administrators.

“I just plan to be out knocking on doors, going to events in our community — It’s starting to warm up in Chicago, which is great — and going to places where parents are,” Pierre said.

Pierre has served on the Local School Council at her high-school aged daughter’s school and said she believes in parents having a strong voice and also supports school choice.

Carlos Rivas also filed campaign disclosure paperwork Monday and is planning to run in District 3, representing the north west side neighborhoods of Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa, and part of Belmont Cragin. He’s a former college counselor and alumni support manager at the Noble Network of Charter Schools and now serves a public affairs chief for Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

Education-focused political committees could play a role

Both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools have active political committees that have supported local candidates for Chicago City Council and the Illinois legislature in the past decade. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the charter group’s political funds had a collective $1.8 million and the teachers union’s two PACs had just over $200,000 in their accounts.

Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said his organization plans to meet with school board candidates and determine who to support over the summer after candidates have filed signatures to get on the ballot. He raised concerns about state lawmakers increasing the signature requirement to 1,000 from 250 under previous legislation. For comparison, Chicago aldermen must get 473 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

“Given that petition challenges are a feature of Chicago politics, you need to have more than 1,000 to actually be competitive,” Broy said. “I think that was probably a ballot access barrier of sorts put in place at the 11th hour in Springfield.”

Two familiar names in Chicago’s education landscape — former mayoral candidate and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas and former charter school leader Juan Rangel — recently filed paperwork to form a political action committee called Urban Center PAC.

Rangel said the PAC could possibly support Chicago school board candidates, but it’s not the group’s sole focus. He recently launched a nonprofit of the same name, The Urban Center, that more broadly focused on community organizing around more centrist political views. “Access to High-Quality Schools” is listed on the organization’s website as something the group stands for, which includes “parents to choose a school — public or private — that best fits the needs of their children.” Rangel recently worked for Empower Illinois, one of the state’s top scholarship-granting organizations under the tax-credit scholarship program Invest in Kids, which is sunsetting.

“We want to be a resource for candidates who want to run for public office and that would include for school board,” Vallas said. He added that he is not planning to run for Chicago school board and hopes future board members will focus on “empowering the community to have input into the transformation of their local schools.”

Reema Amin contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago tendrá un consejo escolar electo y empiezan a surgir candidatos

2024-04-01T17:50:58+00:00

Leer en inglés.

Las personas interesadas en postularse a las primeras elecciones de la junta escolar de Chicago pueden empezar a recolectar firmas para poder estar en la boleta el 26 de marzo.

Los votantes de Chicago acudirán a las urnas el 5 de noviembre para elegir a 10 de los 21 miembros que formarán parte del Consejo de Educación a partir del 15 de enero de 2025. Tras esas elecciones, el alcalde nombrará también a 11 miembros.

La ciudad está distribuida en 10 distritos para estas primeras elecciones y cada uno de ellos estará representado por un miembro elegido y otro designado por el alcalde. El alcalde nombrará también a un presidente del consejo escolar.

Los candidatos deben vivir en Chicago, en el distrito al que piensan postularse, durante al menos un año. Deben ser ciudadanos estadounidenses, estar registrados para votar y no pueden ser delincuentes sexuales de menores. Para figurar en la papeleta, los candidatos tienen que recoger al menos 1,000 y no más de 3,000 firmas válidas de votantes del distrito al que representarán.

Las firmas deben presentarse ante la Junta Electoral de Chicago entre el 17 y el 24 de junio.

Además de las firmas, los candidatos recaudarán fondos para apoyar sus campañas. Una vez que un candidato recauda más de 5,000 dólares, la ley estatal le obliga a presentar documentos de divulgación a la Junta Electoral del Estado de Illinois. Hasta ahora, cuatro candidatos han hecho eso bajo comités que incluyen sus nombres, mientras otros comités de acción política han sido formados.

Adam Parrott-Sheffer, padre de CPS y ex maestro y director de CPS, sometió documentos de divulgación de su campaña a principios de este mes y lanzó un sitio web para anunciar que él está compitiendo para representar el Distrito 10, que incluye su vecindario de Hyde Park y extiende la mayor parte de la orilla del lago del sur de la ciudad desde I-55 hasta la frontera de Indiana.

Parrott-Sheffer le dijo a Chalkbeat que se lanzó después de no ver a otros lanzarse. Dijo que debido a que los miembros del consejo escolar no serán compensados más allá de los gastos relacionados con el desempeño de su trabajo, los padres y las personas no relacionadas con intereses especiales tendrán más dificultades.

“No creo que los cargos deban ser como lo son en [Los Ángeles], donde es una lucha entre empresas y sindicatos”, dijo Parrott-Sheffer. “Creo que hay mucho que todas esas perspectivas pueden aprender unas de otras, y son realmente valiosas cuando pensamos en todas ellas juntas”.

Parrott-Sheffer, ahora consultor de educación y profesor adjunto, dijo que ser director le dio las habilidades para ser un miembro firme que puede equilibrar las necesidades de los padres, el distrito, los organizadores, los maestros, las organizaciones comunitarias y las empresas, manteniendo a los niños “al frente y en el centro”.

“La política no es lo mío”, dice Parrott-Sheffer. “Me gustan las escuelas, me gusta mejorarlas. Me gusta hacer que funcionen para los niños. Y ésa fue la decisión final”.

Kimberly Brown, madre de CPS, planea postularse en el Distrito 4, que abarca los vecindarios de Lincoln Park, Lakeview y Uptown. Brown es la directora de marketing en una empresa de manufactura global y tiene dos hijos pequeños - uno que asiste a una escuela en Lakeview.

“La realidad es que la mayor parte de los cambios que nos afectan suceden en nuestro propio vecindario, con la política local y, más concretamente, en nuestra escuela local”, dijo a Chalkbeat. “Y si no tienes hijos, las escuelas locales afectan a la seguridad pública. Afectan a las infraestructuras públicas. Afectan a los negocios y a la economía que hace que tus calles sean bonitas. Las escuelas locales construyen economías locales”.

Si es elegida, Brown dijo que espera promover una mayor transparencia y comunicación por parte del distrito. Ese deseo viene después de pasar los últimos ocho meses hablando con los padres de CPS para entender lo que quieren del distrito, que no saben “si la Junta [de Educación] realmente lo está intentando o no”, dijo Brown.

Michelle Pierre también ha presentado la documentación de su campaña el viernes y planea postularse en el Distrito 1, que abarca Portage Park y Jefferson Park, en el noroeste de Chicago, cerca del aeropuerto O’Hare. Pierre comenzó su carrera como profesora en Nueva York, se convirtió en directora en D.C., y pasó a desempeñar funciones de liderazgo de distrito en D.C. y Cleveland. Fue directora de la red de escuelas chárter LEARN de Chicago y ahora trabaja para New Leaders, una organización nacional sin fines de lucro dedicada a la formación de directores y administradores escolares.

“Sólo pienso salir a llamar a las puertas, ir a actos en nuestra comunidad -en Chicago está empezando a hacer calor, lo cual es estupendo- e ir a los sitios donde están los padres”, dijo Pierre.

Pierre ha servido en el Consejo Escolar Local en la escuela de su hija en edad de escuela secundaria y dijo que cree en los padres que tienen una voz fuerte y también apoya la elección de escuela.

Carlos Rivas también presentó la documentación de su campaña el lunes y tiene previsto postularse en el Distrito 3, que representa a los vecindarios del lado noroeste de Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa y parte de Belmont Cragin. Ha sido consejero universitario y gestor de apoyo a ex-alumnos en la Red Noble de escuelas charter y ahora es jefe de asuntos públicos de la Oficina Civil de Rendición de Cuentas de la Policía de Chicago.

Los comités políticos centrados en la educación podrían desempeñar un papel importante

Tanto el Sindicato de Maestros de Chicago como la Red de Escuelas Chárter de Illinois tienen comités políticos activos que han apoyado a candidatos locales para el Concejo Municipal de Chicago y la legislatura de Illinois en la última década.

A partir del 31 de diciembre de 2023, los fondos políticos del grupo charter tenían un colectivo de 1.8 millones de dólares y los dos PAC del sindicato de maestros tenían poco más de 200,000 dólares en sus cuentas.

Andrew Broy, presidente de la Red de Escuelas Chárter de Illinois, dijo que su organización planea reunirse con los candidatos a la junta escolar y determinar a quién apoyar durante el verano después de que los candidatos hayan presentado firmas para entrar en la boleta electoral. Expresó su preocupación por el hecho de que los legisladores estatales hayan aumentado el requisito de firmas de 250 a 1,000 en la legislación anterior. En comparación, los concejales de Chicago deben obtener 473 firmas válidas para poder presentarse a las elecciones.

“Dado que los desafíos en las peticiones son una característica de la política de Chicago, se necesita tener más de 1.000 para ser realmente competitivos”, dijo Broy. “Creo que probablemente se trata de una especie de barrera de acceso a las urnas puesta a última hora en Springfield”.

Dos nombres conocidos en el panorama de la educación de Chicago - el ex candidato a la alcaldía y ex CEO de CPS Paul Vallas y el ex líder de las escuelas charter Juan Rangel - recientemente presentaron documentos para formar un comité de acción política llamado Urban Center PAC.

Rangel dijo que el PAC podría apoyar a los candidatos a la junta escolar de Chicago, pero no es el único objetivo del grupo. Recientemente lanzó una organización sin fines de lucro del mismo nombre, The Urban Center, que se centra más ampliamente en la organización comunitaria en torno a puntos de vista políticos más centristas. “Acceso a escuelas de alta calidad” figura en el sitio web de la organización como algo que el grupo defiende, lo que incluye que “los padres puedan elegir la escuela -pública o privada- que mejor se adapte a las necesidades de sus hijos”. Rangel trabajó recientemente para Empower Illinois, una de las principales organizaciones estatales de concesión de becas dentro del programa de becas con desgravación fiscal Invest in Kids, que está llegando a su fin.

“Queremos ser un recurso para los candidatos que quieran presentarse a cargos públicos y eso incluiría para el consejo escolar”, dijo Vallas. Añadió que no tiene previsto presentarse al consejo escolar de Chicago y que espera que los futuros miembros del consejo se centren en “capacitar a la comunidad para que participe en la transformación de sus escuelas locales.”

Reema Amin colaboró en la redacción.

Becky Vevea es jefa de la oficina de Chalkbeat Chicago. Puede ponerse en contacto con Becky en bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por INN.

Chicago tendrá un consejo escolar que será elegido. ¿Qué preguntas tienes?

2024-02-29T11:00:00+00:00

En menos de un año, las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago tomarán juramento a sus primeros miembros electos del consejo escolar.

Pero incluso con una fecha firme de juramento del 15 de enero de 2025, muchas preguntas sin respuesta aún permanecen sobre la elección del 5 de noviembre que daría paso a los nuevos miembros del consejo- y cómo el consejo funcionará una vez en su lugar. La ley estatal establece que 10 miembros serán elegidos este año, pero los legisladores están debatiendo si elegir a los 21 ahora. (El alcalde Brandon Johnson pidió recientemente a la legislatura que se asegure de que sólo la mitad sean elegidos este año, informó el Sun-Times).

La legislatura estatal también debe finalizar los límites de los distritos para los miembros del consejo escolar. Los legisladores parecen haber acordado un tercer borrador del mapa el pasado noviembre.

Una vez que los miembros presten juramento el próximo enero, ¿qué sigue? ¿Cómo funcionará el consejo en comparación con el consejo que sustituirá?

Chalkbeat Chicago quiere escuchar tus preguntas sobre las próximas elecciones para el consejo escolar y sobre los miembros elegidos del consejo escolar. Vamos a tratar de responder a tus preguntas a través de nuestros reportajes mientras seguimos las campañas y las elecciones de este año.

Responde a la encuesta aquí o rellénala abajo. No utilizaremos tu nombre en nuestros reportajes sin tu permiso.

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Reema Amin es una reportera que cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago para Chalkbeat Chicago. Ponte en contacto con Reema en ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Institute for Nonprofit News.

Illinois House passes plan for Chicago’s elected school board

2024-03-07T21:58:38+00:00

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The Illinois House has approved a Senate proposal that would allow Chicagoans to vote for 10 out of 21 school board members during the Nov. 5 election. The bill now heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s officer for final approval.

Senate Bill 15, which passed 75-31 on Thursday, includes boundaries for the districts that school board members will represent, ethics guidelines, and term limits.

November marks the first time Chicago voters will be able to elect school board members. Voters will elect 10 board members while Mayor Brandon Johnson will appoint 11, effectively keeping control until the end of his first term. In 2026, all 21 seats will be up for election, with 20 members elected from districts and the board president voted on by the entire city.

The House vote Thursday comes just two weeks before March 26, when school board candidates can start to gather signatures to get on the Nov. 5 ballot. According to the bill, candidates will need to collect at least 1,000 signatures by June 24 to get on the ballot.

Rep. Ann Williams, a Democrat representing neighborhoods on Chicago’s north side, said Thursday afternoon that if this debate had taken place a year ago, she would have pushed for a fully elected school board. However, with November only a few months away, she feels the plan to elect 10 instead of all 21 is the best way to move forward.

“CPS is a $9 billion dollar agency which serves over 325,000 students,” said Williams. “It feels irresponsible to completely turn over the governance of Chicago Public Schools in a matter of months without adequate time to plan.”

While House members praised the work Williams and other lawmakers have done to establish an elected school board, others expressed concerns the shift in governance could impact the district’s finances.

Rep. Fred Crespo, a Democrat representing suburbs northwest of Chicago, said he is still worried about the financial impacts of Chicago’s elected board on the state and city.

A 2022 report required by state law detailed costs the Chicago Board of Education might take on as the board transitions to an elected board. For example, the report said, the City of Chicago could begin to charge the school district for things such as water and rent in non-district public facilities.

Chicago’s school board has been appointed by the mayor since 1995. For years, community organizations and the Chicago Teachers Union lobbied state lawmakers and rallied local support to get a fully elected school board. The effort gained momentum after school closures in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Sides.

In 2021, the general assembly passed a compromise bill that created a hybrid board in 2024, which drew protests from local advocates.

Illinois Senate approves plan for how Chicago would elect 10 of 21 school board members in 2024

2024-03-06T00:12:50+00:00

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Chicago voters would elect – for the first time – 10 school board members this November and all 21 members in 2026, according to a plan approved by Illinois senators Tuesday.

The vote on Senate Bill 15 firms up the districts that elected school board members would represent ahead of a looming April 1 deadline to draw a map lawmakers pushed back last spring. It also comes ahead of March 26, when candidates can begin circulating petitions to get on the Nov. 5 ballot. They would need to collect at least 1,000 but not more than 3,000 signatures by June 24 in order to run.

The bill now goes to the House, which must approve the measure before it can head to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.

The Senate vote appears to resolve a disagreement between lawmakers that emerged last year over whether Chicago should go straight to electing all 21 school board members and skip having a hybrid school board. The original law passed in 2021 laid out a process to have 10 elected members and 11 appointed by the mayor.

Senate President Don Harmon said during the hearing that he filed an amendment to the bill that passed Tuesday because Mayor Brandon Johnson wrote a letter to him at the end of January requesting to stick with a hybrid school board.

“There has been much passion and frustration surrounding this effort, not for days or weeks or months, but for years and decades,” said Harmon during the Senate’s floor debate on Tuesday afternoon. “What we’re about to do today is one of the most consequential things we will do in our legislative careers. We are making a new democratic form of government from whole cloth and getting it across the finish line.”

Chicago’s Board of Education has been appointed by the mayor since 1995, when the state legislature gave control of Chicago Public Schools to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. In 2021, the state legislature passed a law paving the way for a 21-member elected school board. The school board votes on the district’s annual multi-billion dollar budget, determines how schools are measured, authorizes contracts with vendors to bus students to and from school, clean classrooms and hallways, and even operate entire schools under charter agreements.

Senate majority leader Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and western suburbs, said it is time to stop “playing politics” and represent the children who are attending Chicago Public Schools.

“We are here now, punting the ball back and forth from chamber to chamber – if the mayor wants it, if [Chicago Teachers Union] wants it — who cares?” Lightford said. “When are we willing to put politics aside and educate our children? I would love to see that happen before I retire.”

The district map approved by the Senate on Tuesday mirrors a third draft released during the veto session in November, but groups the 20 districts into pairs to create 10 districts for this year’s elections. That aligns with what the House passed last fall which was put forward by Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of the city’s North Side and chairs a special task force of House Democrats who worked on drawing school board districts.

There are three majority Black districts, three majority Latino districts, two majority white districts, and two districts with no majority, but a white plurality.

By creating 10 districts for 2024 and dividing them into 20 subdistricts in 2026, Senate Bill 15 would allow everyone in the city to vote for a school board member this November.

During the 2024 elections, if the winning candidate in District 1 lives in subdistrict 1a, the mayor would appoint someone who lives in 1b. In 2026, all 20 school board members would be elected from subdistricts to either a two-year or four-year term and the school board president would be elected citywide to a four-year term beginning Jan. 15, 2027.

Chicagoans who testified at multiple hearings last year raised concerns about the school board representing the students it will eventually serve. The district is 46% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American. However, electoral districts must represent all voters. Chicago’s overall population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black.

A Chalkbeat analysis of the demographics of the schools within the boundaries of each of the 10 districts indicates that in four districts, the racial majority of the population does not match the student demographics of the schools in that district.

There is also an imbalance of the number of CPS schools within each district. One district, which stretches from West Town to Austin, has 101 public schools in it, while the north lakefront district that includes Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and Uptown, has 34 CPS schools.

Kids First Chicago, a parent advocacy group, said in a statement it hopes Mayor Johnson will “leverage his appointments to ensure the elected school board reflects our student body’s diversity in 2025.”

Under the bill now headed to the House, the 10 districts would be divided for the 2026 elections, creating 20 districts, seven majority Black, six majority Latino, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts are plurality white, with Latinos making up the second-largest population.

During the Senate’s executive committee hearing earlier on Tuesday, a large number of people were critical of Senate Bill 15. Some want to see a fully elected school board now, while others found the language in the bill confusing.

“Back in November, everybody could vote for the candidate of their choice. Anybody who wanted to run could run and it didn’t matter where they lived or who their neighbor was,” said Valerie Leonard, with Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, which also pushed for a committee that focuses on Black student achievement at Chicago Public Schools.

Leonard said the move to an elected school board under this plan is confusing. “If you ask 30 people what this bill is today, I guarantee you’re gonna get 30 different answers,” Leonard said. “That’s not good public policy.”

Sen. Robert Martwick, who sponsored the elected school board law that passed in 2021, said on the Senate floor Wednesday that bill also required compromise.

“That’s what the Senate passed. That’s what the House passed. That’s what the governor signed,” said Martwick. “Is it perfect? No. But when you figure out what the perfect form of democracy is, would you let me know?”

Martwick worked with some grassroots organizers and the CTU for several years to make an elected school board a reality in Chicago.

“People volunteered and worked for years and years before I got there,” he said. “We get the privilege of making their dreams of democracy become a reality.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago is getting an elected school board. What questions do you have?

2024-02-06T22:22:30+00:00

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Less than a year from now, Chicago Public Schools will swear in its first elected school board members.

Chicago’s elected school board is coming soon. Here’s what you need to know.

But even with a firm swearing-in date of Jan. 15, 2025, many unanswered questions still remain about the election on Nov. 5 that would usher in those new board members — and how the board will function once in place. State law says 10 members will be elected this year, but lawmakers are debating whether to elect all 21 now. (Mayor Brandon Johnson recently asked the legislature to ensure that just half are elected this year, the Sun-Times reported.)

The state legislature must also finalize district boundaries for school board members. Lawmakers appear to have agreed on a third draft of the map last November.

Once members are sworn in next January, what’s next? How will the board work in comparison to the appointed board it will replace?

Chalkbeat Chicago wants to hear your questions about the upcoming school board elections and the elected school board. We’ll aim to answer your questions through our reporting as we follow campaigns and elections this year.

Answer the survey here or fill it out below. We will not use your name in our reporting without your permission.

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Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Who’s the boss? Chicago principals report to many different people.

2024-02-27T20:48:12+00:00

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During Femi Skanes’ 10 years as a Chicago principal, her boss was primarily a district official known as a network chief, she said. Alan Mather, who was also a principal for a decade, says he answered to then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan.

Many principals in Chicago also feel their Local School Council, or LSC, is a boss, while others view the council as more of a partner.

Principals are the leaders of their schools and staff. But in Chicago, multiple entities have power over principals. Later this year, Chicagoans will begin electing school board members, marking another shift in control over the city’s school system, which has been run by the mayor and a hand-picked CEO since 1995 and by a decentralized system of elected LSCs since 1988.

The city’s principals have unionized in hopes of creating more job protections for a role that has seen high turnover in recent years.

“Right now it’s kind of the wild wild west,” said Cynthia Barron, program coordinator and assistant professor with UIC’s Urban Education Leadership Program. “We’re kinda all waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Barron, who spent more than three decades at CPS, said she doesn’t foresee immediate changes as a result of unionization or an elected school board. But, given that details around the future principals union contract and the elected school board are still being ironed out, she said there are “so many unknowns.”

How Chicago principals ended up with many bosses

Those unknowns — as the principals union takes root and the city moves to an elected school board — may disrupt an already complicated hierarchy.

As it stands now, a Chicago principal’s direct supervisor is the head of their network — the geographic area their school is organized under — and they are also accountable to their Local School Council, or LSC, a unique-to-Chicago elected body at most schools made up of parents, teachers, students, and community members, that can hire principals. Both have different hiring and firing powers.

Local School Councils were created in 1988 under the state’s Chicago School Reform Act, which gave LSCs the power to hire principals, approve school budgets, and approve annual school improvement plans.

The state amended that law in 1995 in an effort to centralize and improve the city’s school system. Lawmakers voted to keep LSCs but mandated training for them. The changes also gave the mayor sole authority over appointing the school board and replaced the superintendent title with “chief executive officer” — which stands today.

Today, LSCs can hire a principal and offer them a four-year contract. They can decide to keep the principal or fire them when their contract is up for renewal.

Network chiefs, on the other hand, work for the district and are tasked with ensuring that schools are complying with district policies and meeting academic and instructional goals, according to interviews with school leaders. Network chiefs answer to district leaders who report to the CEO, the Board of Education president, and the mayor. School leaders can also turn to their chiefs when they need extra support.

Both chiefs and LSCs use a similar rubric to evaluate principals annually. Only network chiefs can fire principals at any time for just cause.

Though LSCs hold power over principals, they do not have the same connection to district officials and the school board that a network chief does. It’s also not clear how they’ll interact with the school board once it expands and includes elected members.

Froy Jimenez is a member of the city’s Local School Council Advisory Board, which the state created to advise the Board of Education. Jimenez, a teacher and LSC member at Hancock College Preparatory High School, said he believes that LSCs and principals are “co-leaders” with the shared goal of supporting students.

“When we look at [the] budget, when we look at curriculum, when we look at any specific need of our school,” Jimenez said, “we’re doing it like we’re collaborating.”

Principals balance multiple interests

Principals’ responsibilities have grown over the past two decades and especially since the pandemic. Today, in addition to being instructional leaders, they’re expected to maintain relationships with students, families, staff, and sometimes elected officials, said Jasmine Thurmond, director of Local School Council principal support at CPS.

Some school leaders appreciate the variety of voices, but others often feel torn between conflicting demands.

One principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, was asked by parents who attended LSC meetings to “publicize or encourage things like picketing or public demonstrations” over a district decision this year to suspend bus service for 5,500 general education students, largely those at selective enrollment and gifted schools.

The principal agreed that the lack of busing has been challenging for many of her students. But she explained to parents and the LSC that publicly protesting the busing decision could put her in hot water with her other boss: the district.

“I have to figure out how I can advocate for the needs of my students and the needs of my families,” she told Chalkbeat, “but in a way that is very respectful of the people that are making these decisions — and that is a really difficult balance to strike.”

She has a good relationship with her LSC, which she said is “fair and reasonable” but also demanding. The council requests a lot of data and presentations. Meeting those needs and building personal relationships can be difficult along with all of her other responsibilities as a school leader, she said.

Ryan Belville, principal of McAuliffe Elementary School, said he has a close bond with his LSC that grew during the pandemic, when they worked hand-in-hand to make sure students and families had what they needed. Belville said the LSC has also held him accountable “to serve the school community effectively.”

“I really see why LSCs were developed and why they were put into action,” Belville said. “It’s something we’re very fortunate to have in Chicago.”

Sometimes the LSC wields its power, as Hancock College Preparatory High School did last year when it decided not to renew its principal’s contract in the face of student and teacher opposition.

But there are limits to an LSC’s authority.

At Jones College Prep, the LSC voted in 2022 to recommend the district fire then-principal Joseph Powers based on various allegations, including that he was ignoring problematic teachers and was not addressing issues around gender and racial discrimination. His contract was not up for renewal at the time, so the LSC could not fire him outright.

CEO Pedro Martinez declined to fire Powers, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence. Later that year, CPS put Powers on leave after a student dressed in a Nazi uniform was seen goose-stepping in the school’s Halloween parade. Powers then retired.

One Chicago elementary school principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said that contract renewal time can sometimes feel political. She must ensure that she’s keeping “these X number of people happy or satisfied” so that she can keep her job. At the same time, she wishes she had “more robust” feedback from her LSC, which she thinks is lacking at her school because people often don’t have time to participate — an issue many LSCs face.

On Chicago’s West Side, the LSC at Oscar DePriest Elementary School is working on ensuring enough participation on its council. It is also figuring out how it will work with the school’s new principal, whom it hired in November after interviews and a candidate forum, said Wallace Wilbourn, a teacher and LSC member.

He wants the LSC to have a greater voice on the school’s curriculum, its culture, and how it approaches assessments.

But he’s already seen that many people are trying to hold the principal accountable. Ever since being hired, Wilbourn said, his principal has had to spend a lot of time in meetings with the network.

Network chiefs, top CPS officials hold power

Barron, with UIC, said the relationship between a network chief and principal more closely resembles a typical employee-manager relationship: The two work together on a leadership plan that has goals to hit throughout the year.

Skanes, who was the principal of Morgan Park High School until 2022, always viewed her network chief as her main supervisor. Feedback from the network chief was sometimes “attached to next steps, even in terms of promotion and opportunities,” she said.

The Chicago elementary school principal said the network chief is looking for things at the school that parents or community members may not have expertise in, such as best teaching practices, she said. Her LSC is more interested in school uniform policies or community events for families, she said.

“I think both of those perspectives are super important,” she said. “It shouldn’t be all one or another.”

A former Chicago principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said most of his network chiefs were good listeners and open to his ideas of how to improve his school. But he also felt pressure from the network to boost certain metrics, such as raising attendance by 10 percentage points, including by visiting student homes.

Those efforts resulted in a lot of pressure on staff and kids at his school who were already experiencing “so much trauma,” he said. After hitting the network’s goal, the principal eased up those efforts, saying it didn’t feel “worth the squeeze and my time and emotional energy.” Attendance rates dropped.

In that case, he decided to “take the heat from the network” because it meant more “sanity” for his school, he said.

A small share of schools have Appointed Local School Councils, or ALSCs, which don’t have the power to hire or fire principals but can provide nonbinding input on who they want to lead their schools. In those cases, the CEO gets final say on hiring a principal.

That was the case for Alan Mather, now the president of the Golden Apple Foundation. He became the principal of Lindblom Math and Science Academy in 2005 when the school was reopened as a selective enrollment high school. Mather was appointed by then-CEO Arne Duncan and the new school, which drew high-performing students from across the city, did not have an LSC. It wasn’t until his last year at Lindblom that an ALSC was formed, Mather said.

Mather considered Duncan to be his boss and was given a lot of autonomy to craft Lindblom’s culture and academics, such as adopting a year-round schedule during his time.

“It was the CEO who could have removed me at any time,” Mather said. “I was not working under a contract.”

As principals unionize, a question about management

When the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, or CPAA, decided to unionize last year, its president Troy LaRaviere promised to fight for better pay, less focus on bureaucratic tasks, more job security – including the ability to voice opinions publicly without punishment – and more due process when principals face accusations of misconduct.

LaRaviere did not respond to multiple requests for an interview for this story. Another CPAA representative declined to comment, including to confirm whether the union has started bargaining, and deferred to LaRaviere.

The unionization effort could impact how network chiefs discipline and evaluate principals. But huge questions remain.

“We don’t know what is to come,” said Thurmond, from the district. She added that they’re “looking forward to deepening the collaboration” with CPAA to make sure principals are supported, versus the district “being perceived as an enemy.”

Some observers have wondered how a union contract might impact the authority of a network chief or LSC. For instance, will it be tougher for the LSC not to renew a principal’s contract?

Changes to an LSC’s powers, however, would likely require a change to the state law that created them, said Barron, the expert from UIC.

For the district’s part, Thurmond said CPS will continue “empowering LSCs and ALSCs” so that “communities continue to have control of their schools.”

One former principal thinks an elected school board could make LSCs feel redundant or powerless, since board members will represent different parts of the city.

LSCs were created when there wasn’t an elected board and are seen by some as mini-school boards at individual schools. But come January 2025, the Chicago Board of Education will be made up of 10 members elected by their communities and 11 members appointed by the mayor.

“If we have an elected school board of 21 and you have them passing resolutions saying we’re doing this, this and this,” he wondered, “then what does the LSC have the autonomy to say and do if it’s all coming from downtown?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

As Chicago gets its first elected school board, Local School Councils may become a proving ground for candidates

2024-02-08T16:32:48+00:00

Updated: This story has been updated to reflect an extension to the deadline for candidates to file paperwork to run for LSC. It is now Wednesday, Feb. 14.

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In the halls of Uplift Community High School, Karonda Locust is known as “Mama T.”

“If you need help, go tell my mom,” her daughter Tiara, now 23, would tell her friends when she was a student there.

“That’s how I got stuck here,” Locust said with a laugh on a recent Monday.

For four years while her daughter attended Uplift, Locust served as a parent representative on the school’s Local School Council, the governing body of community members, parents, and school staff that make decisions about the school’s budget and academic plan and evaluate the school’s leaders. Locust has also served on the LSC at Willa Cather Elementary school, where her youngest daughter still attends, for nine years.

For Locust, the LSC was a gateway to more involvement in the school.

“That’s how it should be,” said Locust’s sister Taschaunda Hall, who is also an active member of the Cather’s LSC and briefly served on the LSC at Uplift as well.

Chicago’s LSCs are unique and powerful. There’s nothing quite like them in other school districts across the U.S. The Chicago School Reform Act of 1988 established that every CPS-run school would have a Local School Council. Today LSCs are made up of six parents, two teachers, two community members, a student representative, and the school’s principal.

But while the first LSC elections in 1989 had over 17,000 candidates, those numbers have plummeted over the years. The last LSC elections in 2022 saw just over 6,000 applicants, but voter turnout was at its strongest in a decade, with students making up the majority of the 110,700 voters.

Still, LSC members have successfully advocated for change and improvements and many believe the councils are the key to better schools across the city.

Now, with Chicago’s Board of Education adding elected seats for the first time this year and transitioning to a fully elected board in 2026, LSCs may become a sort of proving ground for positions with a broader reach.

“I do predict many of our LSC members may put their hat in the ring,” said Kishasha Ford, director of the CPS LSC Relations office. “Our LSC members [are] very well-equipped to do this work because they have some experience being on a kind of a board, because if you think about it, LCSs are like mini school boards for their local school.”

Elections for these “mini school boards’' are happening again this spring. The deadline to run for LSC is 3 p.m. next Wednesday, Feb. 14 and election day for elementary schools is April 10 and April 11 for high schools, with new two-year terms of office beginning July 1, 2024.

As of Feb. 1, 1,902 people had filed to run for LSC, according to district officials. At the same time last election cycle in 2022, 852 people had applied.

Over the decades, LSCs have changed the names of schools named after enslavers, removed controversial leadership, won capital improvements, even helped open new schools. Others have sat mostly empty, served as little more than a rubber stamp, or been rendered ineffective by infighting and conflicting interests.

It depends on who’s running the ship, says Kendra Snow, the lead parent organizer for grassroots organization Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education.

Studies showing that parent involvement in schools can have a major impact on student outcomes are abundant, but for LSCs to be effective, Snow argues, parents have to do more than just show up, they have to be informed.

But the “showing up” part is still a major part of the battle.

After elections in 2022, over a thousand LSC positions were unfilled and according to CPS data, 311 schools still have vacancies on their councils. Still, according to CPS, 97% of LSCs had enough members to meet “quorum,” which requires that seven members be present for the LSC to vote and conduct business.

Chalkbeat caught up with four parents who have served on LSCs, where they called for improvements and guided their schools through challenges. Their experiences demonstrate what LSCs are capable of, some of the reasons parents may be opting out, and how the role of LSCs may shift as Chicago gets an elected school board.

The mom who wants to open LSCs to more people

Karonda Locust (right), a current LSC parent representative at Willa Cather Elementary School and former LSC parent representative at Uplift Community High School, stands with her sister, Taschaunda Hall (left), on the playground outside Cather.

Karonda Locust is decked out in the red and black of Willa Cather Elementary school on a recent Monday morning. Today, she’s helping out at the security check-in at the front doors before heading to work, but “I’m always there, everywhere,” she says.

She chats easily with staff and students and no one questions her presence as she walks the halls. They all know who she is.

Locust has served on the LSC at Cather alongside her sister Taschaunda Hall for nine years. When her eldest daughter moved on to Uplift Community High School in 2019, she joined the LSC there as well. For four years, she served on both LSCs at the same time.

Her time on the LSC at Uplift helped her forge relationships with the staff and kids and she continues to volunteer there even though her daughter has graduated. That’s the point of LSCs, she said, to invest in not just your own kids, but the school community as a whole.

That’s why in 2022 when her daughter was a senior at Uplift, she and her daughter (who sat on the LSC as a student representative) advocated for a bus service to bring in more students from the West Side. Her own daughter would never benefit from it, but other kids would.

Now, a bus picks up kids from Cather Elementary to bring them to Uplift, giving West Side kids a chance to attend the school without leaving parents to figure out the hour-and-a-half commute.

“That’s one of the things that I’m most proud of – that we were able to bring kids from other neighborhoods to Uplift and they can have that experience as well,” said Locust.

With the first Chicago Board of Education elections happening later this year, Locust said several friends and community members have asked her to run for a seat, but she doesn’t have the time.

Instead, now that her daughter has graduated – she earned a scholarship to study education at Truman College and plans to become a teacher – Locust is shifting some of her focus to advocating for changes to the structures and rules of LSCs.

Some of the requirements for serving on LSCs, she says, are keeping people out.

When Locust herself was a teen mother, she had a hard time making it to her daughters’ school events. In her stead, she often sent grandparents or aunts or uncles, any way to make sure her kids felt supported. But none of those family members could run for the LSC as a parent representative – and none lived within the school’s neighborhood boundaries, making them ineligible to serve as a community representative.

Family structures have changed in the past three decades, said Locus, and she wants to open up LSCs to more family members outside of the traditional parent-child paradigm.

“We’re actually losing out on opportunities for family members that could support the school because of the structure that was created over 30 years ago,” said Locust. “This is a non-paid position, so if somebody wants to serve and help my kids’ school, God bless ‘em.”

She also hopes to end the fingerprinting and background check requirements for LSC parents, saying it alienates parents with criminal records and scares off parents who are undocumented, though, barring convictions for certain offenses, both are legally allowed to serve on LSCs.

The veteran LSC leader who built a new school

José Quiles, a community representative on LSCs at Mary Lyon Public School, Steinmetz College Prep, Belmont-Cragin Elementary School in Belmont-Cragin, speaks inside of a classroom on Fri., Jan. 25, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

José Quiles has served on LSCs since they were first created in 1989. In his 35 years as a parent representative and then as a community representative, he’s seen it all.

The stories roll out of him with ease on a recent Thursday as he leads a Local School Council information session at the Belmont-Cragin not-for-profit organization he founded in 2015, the Education Community Committee (ECC).

He currently sits on LSCs at three schools – Mary Lyon Public School, Steinmetz College Prep, and Belmont-Cragin Elementary School – and when he’s not conducting LSC business, he’s teaching other people in the neighborhood how to join their LSCs and get things done on them.

In the workshops at ECC, they talk about things like how to read a budget and the rules and expectations for LSC members.

But what he hones in on and repeats over and over in the workshops is that the LSC is about the kids. All of the kids, not just their own.

That’s what sustained the eight-year movement he helped lead to get a new school built in Belmont-Cragin, he said – knowing that it was what the kids in the area needed.

“Belmont-Cragin started because Mary Lyon had 1800 kids,” said Quiles.

Initially, to address the overcrowding, some of the Mary Lyon kids were sent to a nearby site on Mango St. that was formerly the Catholic school St. James. When it became clear that the principal at Mary Lyon was struggling to oversee both school facilities, the LSC requested a separate principal and LSC to separate the school from Mary Lyon altogether, thereby creating a new school.

“Basically, we gave birth to it,” he said with a laugh.

Amid the swath of school closures in 2013, the St. James facility was closed and the students were relocated to a site on Palmer St., but the LSC found that there were not enough bathroom facilities for the students.

The LSC and other community organizations began pushing for a new school to be built at Riis Park.

In January 2023, the new Belmont-Cragin Elementary School officially opened in the park, offering 32 classrooms with park views, a black box theater, library, music room, and access to the connected park fieldhouse.

Quiles’ own children and foster children have long since graduated from the schools where he currently serves as community representative on the LSCs.

At 68, he says he wants to retire, but he’s worried that the LSCs aren’t ready for him to do so.

“A strong council moves mountains,” he told participants in Spanish during a recent LSC workshop. “But a weak council goes in no direction. And when you don’t move in any direction, there is no progress.”

That’s what his work with ECC is all about – educating parents so they know what questions to ask and how to push for change, whether on LSCs or as members of the new elected school board or as the voters who put people on those governing bodies.

Despite his insistence that he needs to retire, Quiles still has his ear to the floor at his local schools.

Right now, he says the biggest issues his LSCs are working on are the social emotional impacts of the pandemic on the students and supporting immigrant students and parents.

Advocating for the South Side

Kendra Snow is running for LSC at Christian Fenger Academy High School in Roseland. She is a former LSC member at Harvard Elementary School in Auburn-Gresham.

Back in 2002 when Kendra Snow sat on her first Local School Council at a school in Auburn-Gresham, “it was like a puppet show,” she said.

The principal “hand-picked” the parents she wanted on the council and ran the meetings, quickly going over budget lines. No one asked any questions or knew what anything meant.

“We were just bodies here to put a signature to something,” she said.

Then, Snow began to learn on her own.

“I had to learn this for myself, it’s the parents with the power, and if you want to know something then you read into it the same way she did,” said Snow. “So now I’m the troublemaker, because I challenged things.”

CPS supports LSCs with trainings and office hours, as well as 13 specialists supporting 511 LSCs, according to the department’s director Kishasha Ford.

There is a 300-page manual for LSC members and online modules as well as in-person trainings, said Ford.

“That’s the biggest part of our job is the education piece.” she said. “Because it is a lot to know and we can’t expect every single LSC member to know every single nuanced thing. That’s why we’re here to help support and to guide them.”

Snow read the manual and did the online modules, but she says, it’s not quite enough.

“You got to just do more than just watch these videos,” she said, suggesting that CPS incorporate questions into the modules to make sure viewers understood the material before moving on to the next video.

She supplemented her CPS training with resources and workshops from community organizations. Now, Snow works to empower other parents so they can have a voice on their LSCs. She is the lead parent organizer with Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education.

The mother of seven, Snow has been entrenched in public education since her eldest son, now 31, first attended school. In fact, it was when her son was accepted into a school on the North Side that Snow was able to compare his experience there to the schools her other children attended on the South Side.

The biggest difference?

“Resources,” she said. “We’re not fighting the same battles. The resources that are in those schools, we don’t have in our schools.”

In her experience, Snow said parents are angry about the lack of resources and come into the schools shouting about it. She sees it as her job to give them a more effective way to get things done.

“You’re not getting results that way. So now let’s fight a different way for what we need in the school,” she said. “You hit them with policies. You hit them with facts.”

Snow has concentrated her efforts specifically on the South Side where she grew up and where most of her children have attended public schools.

In her work as a CPS-certified LSC trainer, she hopes she can not only encourage more South Side parents to run for LSC seats, but help make sure they are informed and therefore empowered to help improve their schools – one parent at a time, one school at a time.

“Know your power. Know that this is for your kids,” Snow said. “You have to fight for your kids. Just be there. Just show up. It’s a couple hours out of the month. Just show up. That time is worth it for public education.”

Educating fellow parents, ousting a principal

Vanessa Espinoza is former LSC member at Orozco Community Academy in Pilsen.

Vanessa Espinoza has been volunteering in Chicago Public Schools since before she had kids.

When she became a mother and began making friends with other parents, it opened her eyes to some of the inequities and challenges in CPS. Espinoza, who is bilingual, became particularly interested in supporting English language learners as well as students with IEPs, or Individualized Education Programs, to help students with special needs.

She soon joined the LSC at Orozco where her kids were enrolled and was surprised that few of the parent representatives understood the documents and policies they were supposed to be making decisions about.

“Why are you expecting the parents to approve something that they don’t understand totally?” she said. “You gave them the power just to say yes and no, but not do anything else.”

The trainings offered by CPS to parent representatives, she said, were superficial. For example, they teach the names of the budget lines, but not that each budget line can only be used for certain purchases.

“None of that was taught to the parents who were going to make this decision on the budget” she said.

However, Espinoza’s background as a support worker at another school gave her a leg up in this area. And her knowledge of finances turned out to be particularly important on Orozco’s LSC in 2014.

Because she knew how to read the budget, Espinoza soon discovered that the principal at the time was transferring large sums of money between budget lines, something that required approval from the LSC.

So she asked to see all of the reports on the budget and the school’s internal accounts. The principal refused and Espinoza requested an audit. The LSC tried to work with her, Espinoza said, but the principal was not amenable.

“This money’s for the kids. You don’t want to tell us where the money is and how you’re going to use it, then that’s it,” she said. " So we requested her removal.”

The council voted unanimously to remove Principal Nancy Paulette-Aguirre in November 2014.

But it wasn’t an entirely popular decision.

Most of the teachers at the school supported the decision, raising issues about turnover among other things and other LSC members said Paulette-Aguirre refused to work with the council, but non-LSC parents were split. On the day of the vote, 12 parents protested outside the school. Paulette-Aguirre was later removed from a second school in 2019.

“Even though the parents have the power to make significant changes, you have to be able to educate the parents with the information needed to make educated decisions, and [CPS] is not. In my opinion, they’re not.” said Espinoza.

She worries that these same issues might bleed over into the newly elected school board but is still hopeful that parents will gain some of the 10 elected seats this year.

“To have an elected school board that is going to be successful you have to have parents involved,” she said. “They know what their kids need.”

Espinoza’s children have graduated out of CPS, but Espinoza remains an advocate for education and serves as the bilingual communication specialist with Kids First Chicago and as the president and co-founder of Amigos de Gunsaulus, a parent-led non-profit that supports Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy in Brighton Park, where one of her children graduated.

Despite her challenging experience on Orozco’s LSC, she’s hopeful things can change as long as LSCs are filled with people who put the kids first.

“To be honest with you, it’s a lot of responsibilities, and it’s not well rewarded in a sense, not a monetary reward. Sometimes you get enemies,” but, she said, “If in your mind and your heart is the best for the kids’ education, I think you should run.”